


What You Leave Behind, What You Choose To Be

by Namarie



Series: Bloodlines [2]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Gen, Sort of pre-Liz/Ressler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 58,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namarie/pseuds/Namarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz finds out one part of the truth – and it's a lot more than she'd bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place chronologically well before my previous Blacklist story, "We Bleed The Same." It also features a great deal more of the supernatural elements I mentioned in that fic. Timeline-wise, most of the action in this story takes place starting sometime after Berlin Part 2, but it's vaguely spoilery up to The Decembrist.  
> Thanks to Mack_the_Spoon for her beta, again.
> 
> Also, I don't own this show or its characters.

~~

 

When she looked back on it afterward, Liz saw some of the signs she had missed leading up to that day. Primary among them was the way that Red had gradually started to make sure he could check in on her even more often. He had done it so carefully that she hadn't noticed, hadn't felt like he was being any more disturbingly solicitous than usual.

She had also, of course, thought back to several months before that trend had started, to what little she remembered of the immediate aftermath of a car 'accident' outside of the city. She had been knocked out when the car was forced off the road, flipped over, and crashed at the bottom of the embankment. She didn't remember regaining consciousness for long enough to crawl away from the wreck, but later she had assumed that must have been what happened. She had found herself in a large clearing not too far away when she woke up. Her car's gas tank had exploded, so if she had stayed where she was, she would not have escaped with just a concussion, a bruised rib, and some minor scrapes and bruises. Tom, smiling at her and holding her hand in the hospital, had acted as if her doubts about making it out of there by herself were silly. Of course, she had known even then that everything about Tom was an act.

But Liz had never told anyone about the flashes of memory that had come back to her while she stayed overnight in the hospital. She thought she recalled someone opening her car door and lifting her out, very gently. And then she thought she recalled moving through the air, high above the ground, and then lying sheltered under – something, as the rain fell in the grass of that clearing, before that something had gone away. The protecting canopy had been red-tinged, whatever it was. But these sensations and memories had made so little sense to her that Liz figured they were conjured up by her concussed brain, and she kept them to herself.

Red had visited her in the hospital during the few minutes Tom hadn't been in the room, but he had been surprisingly restrained in his comments and questions. He had left her with an injunction to be careful, and to get some good rest. Then he had disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Now, Liz thought, with a wry twist of her lips, here she was, almost four months to the day after the crash (Tom long out of the picture) – standing at the edge of a cliff. Literally. She had been staring out at the lovely, scenic view below her for nearly an hour now. The sun was starting to set.

She heard a car pull up behind her, and didn't bother to turn. There was only one person (she wondered if that term was really accurate when applied to him … or when applied to her) who could find her no matter where she was. At least now she knew how he always did so. She could probably do the same for him now, if she tried. The thought was odd.

There were sounds of footsteps approaching, and then he was standing next to her. He took a breath. “You know, Lizzie, if you want to stretch your wings, I advise you to get an earlier start. We're not meant to be nocturnal. Nor do we do particularly well in the cold.”

Liz forced herself not to shiver at an evening breeze that took that moment to blow past them. She glanced at Red, and then back out at the view. Her laugh didn't contain much humor. “Well, then maybe it's not such a bad thing that I've been standing here for an hour, trying to convince myself to try _that_ again, and I still haven't succeeded.”

“Why not?” His tone was devoid of criticism. When she didn't answer right away, he said, “Is it because some part of you still hopes that was all a dream? That you're a normal, average woman who can still have a normal, average life? I'm sorry, but it wasn't. It's real. And you're not normal or average in any way.” He was looking at her now; she could feel it. “It doesn't matter if you choose never to fly again, or never to reveal your true shape again.”

“My _true_ shape?” At that, Liz stared at him, incredulous. “How can it be my true shape when-- when I didn't even know about it until yesterday?”

Red looked sympathetic. “I know it's hard to understand, and that you've only just started to take it all in,” he said quietly. “But that doesn't change its veracity.”

She looked away again, crossing her arms. She knew he was right. It wasn't as if she could even pretend she felt like her old self anymore. For the rest of her life, she supposed, she would feel this simmering, pent-up feeling when she was in her human shape – like she was made up of a huge, wild, restless cloud of energy crammed into a space far too small for it, waiting for a chance to be released. Which she guessed wasn't a terrible description.

The silence stretched on between them, and the sky continued to darken. Finally, Liz spoke again. “Will I...” She trailed off.

“Will you what?”

“Will I ever be able to relax? To sleep even close to normally again?” She met his eyes, hoping she hadn't sounded too desperate. Maybe the restlessness would fade when she got used to this change.

But he shook his head slightly. “Though it will get a little better, I'm afraid the answer is no. Not unless you sleep in your true form, which you'll likely not find practical very often. Just one more side effect of how we must keep ourselves, our essences compacted inside these...” he gestured at himself, and then at her, “elaborate disguises.”

So it seemed her description had been quite accurate. It made sense, of the kind of crazy sense anything made these days. Liz frowned, turning to walk back to her car. There was no reason to hurry, so she didn't, even though this pent-up energy made it difficult to hold back. She wondered what other kinds of unpleasant surprises she had in store. “So if this kind of thing is what I can expect from here on out,” she said, “how do you stand it? Wasn't there ever a time when you, I don't know … just let your true shape be all you bothered with?”

He didn't reply, and when Liz looked at him, his expression was dark and distant. “There have been times,” he answered eventually, but didn't elaborate.

When they got to their respective vehicles, Red put a hand on her shoulder, just for a moment. “Good night, Lizzie.” He didn't wait for a response.

Liz watched him get into the car. Just as he was about to close his door, she whispered, “Good night.”

~~  
The Previous Day

The signs became more obvious as the second week went on. She was tense, short-tempered, and her appetite swung hour by hour from nonexistent to extreme. He could tell she had entered the phase when her head ached nearly all the time, too. By now even the most unobservant of her colleagues were beginning to guess that she wasn't well, though Lizzie herself insisted she was fine. Red watched her carefully and unobtrusively, knowing he could easily rouse her suspicions and irritation if he got ahead of himself. But he prided himself on his patience, even when all his instincts told him to get her out of the reach of human observers now.

Afterward, he allowed himself the luxury of regret and guilt for almost having waited too long. It was just about the end of Lizzie's workday, a day when no one on the Blacklist had been in play and thus Red should have been off on some of his own business. But he had “dropped by” that morning, seemingly just because he could and because he enjoyed making Harold and the others nervous (he didn't deny that this brought him some pleasure). He had stayed out of the way for the most part. As for Lizzie, other than asking him brusquely what he was doing there and being entirely unsatisfied with his non-answer, she had left him to his own devices.

By the latter half of the day, it was obvious that Lizzie was only staying at work out of sheer stubbornness. Harold had suggested strongly that she go home, but she had retorted that she wasn't contagious and she wanted to finish what she was working on first. Thankfully, although he had given in on that point, the assistant director had insisted that she stay home the following day.

Red had, against his better judgment, let himself get drawn into a discussion of the merits of some kind of new fingerprint scanning technology with Aram and some of the junior agents he didn't know well. That meant he had missed Lizzie slipping out an hour and a half before her usual time. When he realized his mistake, he signaled to Dembe and left after her, as quickly as he could without drawing undue attention to his exit.

That had been another mistake. He should have just hurried. Lizzie had already made it out of the building, but she wasn't at her car, or anywhere else that made immediate sense. Red felt the beginnings of panic. But then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on his mental sense of her, which had been growing more consistently there ever since the change had begun. She was nearby.

With Dembe close behind him, Red ran to find her. She was lying on her side at the edge of the parking lot, behind a truck, gasping and groaning. Her arms were curled around her stomach.

“Lizzie!” He crouched down beside her. The transformation hadn't started yet, at least. “Lizzie, can you hear me?”

She opened her eyes and found his face. “Red?”

“Dembe and I are going to help you to my car, all right, Lizzie?”

She didn't protest, but when they helped her to her feet, she shut her eyes and grimaced, doubling over even as they held onto her arms. “Oh my God,” she moaned, “what-- what is this?”

“I know how to help you, I promise,” he told her. They made their way as fast as possible to Red's car, the men sometimes having to carry Lizzie when the pain was too great for her.

When they finally got to the car, Red got into the back with Lizzie. She lay down on the seat, her head near him, and Red saw to his dismay that with the latest wave of pain, her eyes opened to show slit pupils. “You know where we're going, yes?” he asked Dembe. In the rearview mirror, the man nodded. “We need to make it quick.”

Dembe stepped on the accelerator. Lizzie cried out in agony, and Red saw the bulge on her shoulders of her wings threatening to burst through. “Lizzie, you need to keep yourself under control for a little longer, please. I know it hurts. Just a few more minutes, and then you can relax.”

She stared up at him, through eyes that once again were flickering between reptilian and human. “I don't understand,” she gasped. “How can I-- aah!” She grimaced again. “How can I control this when I don't know what's happening to me?”

“I'm sorry I don't have time to explain it to you properly now,” he told her, taking her hand. “But I know that alongside the intense pain, you're feeling like there's something impossibly big and immensely powerful inside you trying to get out, aren't you?”

Her mouth opened, but she said nothing, just nodded.

“Yes. Well, there's no stopping her,” he continued. “She will make her way out. But it is possible to hold her off for a while, and I need you to concentrate on that goal, for as long as we're in this car. Can you do that?”

Lizzie's bewilderment could not have been more plain, and Red spared a second to wonder again if there might have been a way to lead up to this that she would have accepted. But he didn't have time to dwell on second guesses. Anyway, she had nodded again, jerkily. Her grip on his hand was tight.

They drove in relative silence for a minute, broken only by Lizzie's ragged, pained breathing. Then she tilted her head back to look at him again. “How did … you know what this feels like?” she asked between breaths. Her expression told him she had guessed what he might say in response.

He gave her a small smile. “Because I went through the same thing when I was just about exactly your age, and I have a pretty good memory for details.”

She stared at him for several seconds. Even during the agony of her first change, she was still putting the pieces together and trying to figure everything out. He rested his other hand on her hair and smiled again. “Just hold on a little while longer, and you'll have a few more answers.”

Lizzie closed her eyes then, groaning as another spasm shook her. But she maintained control until the car stopped at the edge of the field. Dembe parked, then quickly came to help Red get Lizzie out of the vehicle. They laid her gently on the grass. Dembe took Red's hat and coat, met his gaze for an instant, nodded, and got back into the car. He would return sometime tomorrow, Red knew, but there was no rush.

Red crouched down next to Lizzie. “All right, we have two options now,” he told her. “Either you can relax and let her out now, or you can wait ten more seconds to see something that might answer a few of your questions before you do.”

Lizzie was nearing the end of her strength, he saw, but she swallowed and said, “Show me what you're talking about.”

“That's my girl,” said Red, with another proud smile. Then he closed his own eyes. In less than three seconds, he had grown to his full size, towering over the stunned young woman and blocking the late afternoon sun with his outstretched scarlet wings. He took a few steps back, watching her all the while.

“What the hell?!” Lizzie scrambled to all fours and moved backward, her eyes wide. “No. That's-- that's...”

_Impossible? Perhaps_ , he conceded, with a nod. _And yet, here I am._

She was about to speak when another wave of pain hit her. She cried out again and fell to the ground.

_Your turn now, Lizzie. The pain will stop when you let this side of you out. She's been waiting your whole life up to this point, and she won't wait much longer._

She held on for a few more seconds, her gaze still fixed on him. Then she sighed and stopped fighting.

Red had, of course, never had the opportunity to watch himself transform – much less during the first change, which was by far the most difficult and tumultuous for any of their kind. He thought that was probably a mercy, now. He had been better prepared for what was coming when it had been his time, but he still wouldn't have wanted to see himself go through the change the way Lizzie was going through hers, and he had the feeling she definitely would not want to see this from an outside perspective, either:

It was like the copper-colored dragon was emerging from inside an outer skin, or a cocoon, that was made up of Lizzie's human form. Red decided it was a very good thing _he_ knew what was going on, too, since he was rather fond of Lizzie's human form and might otherwise get upset. But he knew it wasn't really being destroyed. It was more of a temporary sublimation.

When she had emerged fully, the young, smaller dragon shook herself and spread her wings. She was beautiful – not that that was a surprise. _Care to take to the skies?_ invited Red, preparing to spring into the air.

But Lizzie anticipated him, taking off almost before he had finished his question. She had a little bit of trouble at first with the mechanics of flight, but soon she was soaring. Red followed, at enough of a distance that she wouldn't feel like he was crowding her. Normally when he indulged in flight time it was for his own pleasure, but watching her discover its joys was even better, in many ways.

She flew for a full hour, exploring not only her new wings but also the extent of this unpopulated plot of land that belonged to Red. By instinct, it seemed, she stayed in its borders. Red was pleased not to have to warn her to be prudent in this. He, meanwhile, had come to rest on a flat rock on top of a hill partway through Lizzie's hour of flight. He was content to watch her while he soaked up the setting sun's rays.

Eventually she landed next to him, breathing heavily and gleaming with excitement and happiness. They were quiet for a while. She grew calmer and more thoughtful. Red counted down mentally to when her questions would begin...

_So, um..._ She was regarding him with frank curiosity. _Dragons. Really._

_Really_ , he agreed, amused. Her scrutiny didn't bother him in the least. _Would you like me to turn around, so you can see a more complete picture?_ From her vantage point, she wouldn't be able to see the scarring on his back, which was to be preferred. He didn't want to get into those questions yet.

She looked embarrassed. _No, that's all right. I just... How many of us are there?_

_Not too many._ He shrugged a wing. _We each of us tend to need a lot of personal space, and that fact combined with naturally long lifespans means plenty of conflicts. This planet isn't big enough for very many of us, I guess you could say. Especially now that humankind has taken up so much of the available room._

At that, she was taken aback. She said, _You just said 'humankind' like we aren't..._

_Lizzie, look at yourself, and look at me. Do we look human?_ Red was oversimplifying, he admitted to himself, but he didn't want to overload her with details.

_But we both can look human – to the extent that not even doctors can tell the difference_ , she pressed, and now he could sense her anxiety. _I mean, I'm assuming I'll be able to change back, when I want to._

_Of course you will_ , he assured her. He gave in. _And you're right. It's not as simple as I implied. I doubt there are any pureblood dragons left by this point._

_Oh._ She took a moment to settle herself more comfortably. Then she cocked her head at him. _So those dragons who didn't get killed by other dragons in territorial disputes down through the years decided to pass themselves off as human, in order to stay alive? Is that what you're saying?_

He nodded. _In a nutshell, yes._ He was about to keep speaking when movement several hundred yards away distracted him. He stood, aware that Lizzie had followed his gaze. _I apologize for interrupting our conversation, Lizzie,_ he said, _but I believe it might be dinner time._ There was a small herd of white-tailed deer entering the valley: four adults and one juvenile. Red turned to Lizzie. _Between the two of us, I estimate that might be just the right amount of food. Shall we?_

This time, she did hesitate. But when Red launched into the air, beginning to circle around toward the deer at a strategic angle, it only took Lizzie a few seconds to do likewise. Red offered the suggestion that they work together, attacking from opposite directions, to which she agreed. Her inexperience meant that the actual attack wasn't as coordinated as it could have been – the fawn escaped into the underbrush – but the two of them brought down the four adults with no trouble.

Red had just about finished his second deer when he noticed that Lizzie had stopped eating. She was staring at him again. Without looking up, he said wryly, _I would apologize for my table manners, but there's no point in pretending I'm anything but a creature without opposable thumbs at the moment. If it offends you--_

_No, I'm not offended_ , she said, again sounding embarrassed. She laughed once and then said, _I was actually trying to figure out how to ask something without offending you._

_Ask away_ , he said. _Have you ever known me to take offense easily, especially from you? Besides, what you've been through today entitles you to many questions._

_Okay._ She shifted position slightly. _Um, I've studied some biology, and I know there are some kinds of animals that, that their size is in direct proportion to how long they've lived. They just keep growing. And you also mentioned earlier that dragons have long lifespans, if they don't kill each other off. So I guess I was wondering, how long could we live? And also..._

Red paused, considering. _You know, I honestly don't think I know the answer to the first part of your question_ , he told her. _I suppose we could just keep going, if no one ever bothered us and we never put ourselves at risk, for centuries and centuries. But the oldest one of our kind I've ever met was just shy of three hundred._

Lizzie stopped eating again. _Wow_ , she said quietly.

_As to the rest of the question, yes, we join the ranks of those creatures who keep growing throughout our lives – lizards, amphibians, fish_ , he informed her. _So if you were trying to find a polite way of asking, then yes, that's why I'm so much bigger than you in this form. I've been around for longer than my human form suggests. But the years are much more obvious when I'm as you see me now._

Her amazement was clear, but all she said was, _Okay. I am suitably impressed. So, are you saying you're going to need another one of these deer?_

Laughing, Red shook his head. _You eat your fill, Lizzie_ , he encouraged. _I'll be fine._

~~  
The first time she went to see Tom afterward, it didn't take him long to notice something was different. He started out by asking if she was all right, a question which she dismissed irritably. But it was harder to concentrate on questioning him more about Berlin when she had just experienced a massive upheaval of everything she thought she knew about her life – again. She sighed and rubbed a hand across her forehead.

“Wait,” said Tom after a moment. He cocked his head. “It's happened, hasn't it? Your first change.”

She stared at him, then laughed a little. “Right. Of course you'd have known about it before I did. You'd need to know, wouldn't you, to be prepared for what to do when your wife suddenly transforms into a huge winged reptile?”

Tom didn't reply. Liz followed this train of thought further. “But now I'm curious, Tom,” she said, stepping closer to him. “What were your instructions for that situation? Just keep playing the sweet, understanding husband while I writhe in pain, and then you, I don't know, say you were taking me to the hospital but actually deliver me to your boss? Does Berlin have special dragon-proof cages prepared for me and Reddington?”

Tom swallowed. He didn't often look nervous, but she thought he might be, right now. “I wasn't given a full set of instructions for that day,” he said finally, “but the first part was, was pretty close to that. I don't know about any cages.”

“You don't, huh?” Liz crossed her arms. “That seems highly unlikely to me. I mean, if I were in your position, I wouldn't want to take the risk of being near someone in the process of transforming into a dangerous, powerful creature they didn't even know existed beforehand, unless I could be sure they wouldn't be a danger to me.”

“I had protection,” Tom stated.

“And what was your protection?”

Any nervousness was gone now, replaced by condescension. “Come on, Liz, you're asking the wrong questions,” he scoffed. “Why spend time worrying about a hypothetical circumstance that never ended up happening? You should be asking why Reddington never told you about your true nature – why he never even warned you about what was going to happen to you. And if you won't ask him, at least ask yourself.”

For a moment, Liz wished she could actually breathe fire, but that was apparently not a part of the myth that was true. Instead, she took a deep breath and shook her head. “You'll have to try harder than that, Tom,” she said. “Reddington knew I wouldn't believe him if he tried to warn me. It's as simple as that.”

“He told you that?” When she didn't reply, he looked incredulous. “You didn't even ask, did you?”

“I didn't need to!” she shot back. The question had, of course, occurred to her after the first rush of excitement had faded out in Red's territory. But it hadn't taken much time at all for her to figure out the answer on her own. If she hadn't experienced it, even seeing Red transform would not have convinced her that she would soon be able to do the same thing. So even though the lead-up to her first change had been terrifying and bewildering, she couldn't blame Red for that. And he had been there for her when it happened. He seemed willing to answer almost any of her questions about it now. And really, now that she knew this secret about him and shared it, she felt like she understood more of why he kept as many secrets as he did. That didn't mean she would stop asking him for the truth … but it did mean she might be more patient.

Tom was still staring at her in what seemed to be genuine amazement. “I-- I just cannot fathom how you can still trust that man, after everything that's happened to you because of him, Liz.”

“Anything you could possibly have to say about trustworthiness is automatically meaningless,” Liz replied. She sighed. “Now unless you're going to actually answer any of my questions about Berlin with something useful, we're done for today.”

As she was about to shut the door behind her, Tom called after her, “Hey, Liz, has he told you how rare it is these days for a male dragon to find a female of your kind? Watch your back!”

Liz stared at him for a moment through the porthole, then turned away.

~  
Eight Days Later

It was faint enough and quick enough that she could have ignored it.

Liz was just getting into the SUV with Ressler, on the way to follow up a lead for a routine case not directly tied to the Blacklist, when she felt a surge of shock and pain. It wasn't hers. She froze, her hand on the seatbelt.

“Liz, is something wrong?” asked Ressler, giving her an odd look.

She took a few seconds to respond, as she figured out what the sensation could mean. Scenarios ran through her head, none of them good. She turned to Ressler. “Uh, I'm fine,” she told him. “I just-- I need to make a call – can you wait a few minutes?” Without waiting for his response, she got out of the car, shut the door, and walked a few yards away. Then she dialed every single one of the numbers she had ever been given to reach Reddington, or Dembe. None of them picked up. Aware that Ressler was waiting, and no doubt getting more concerned, she took a breath. It felt strange to try to reach him via this telepathy, or empathy, or whatever it was. But she did anyway. After a moment, she found him. He was there, and he was in intense pain.

Stifling a gasp, Liz withdrew from the contact and dialed another number – one she hadn't used since Garrick. The woman picked up after three rings, and Liz gave the same countersign she'd been instructed to give last time. This time, Mr. Kaplan was available right away. “What is it?”

“I think-- no, I'm sure something's wrong with him. I can't reach him or Dembe at any of their usual numbers, and...” She decided she had to take the risk. “And I know someone or something is causing him a lot of pain at this exact moment.”

The mysterious Mr. Kaplan didn't seem to find this strange. Instead, she just said briskly, “All right. You initiate a search with your resources, and I'll be in touch.” Then she hung up.

Liz hurried back to the car. “Reddington is – in trouble,” she said.

Ressler's eyebrows rose. “How the hell do you know that?”

“What matters right now is that we find him,” she returned, keeping her cool with effort. The seemingly boundless energy she carried inside her was even harder to ignore than usual. “I'll call Cooper, but I'm guessing this lead suddenly became a whole lot less of a priority.”

She was right, of course. Cooper ordered the team to make finding Reddington their top priority. When Liz offered that she had a tip on a possible area to start looking, the assistant director wanted more details. Liz hesitated. “It's more like a hunch, really,” she admitted. “I wouldn't want to have a team sent with me in case I was wrong.” There was no way she was going to tell Cooper she was actually planning to rely on her vague mental sense of Red's location to track him down; for one thing, she'd never done it before, and although it seemed to work perfectly for Red when he used it to find her, she was less confident on her side.

“All right. Fine,” said Cooper, looking frustrated. “You and Ressler go follow your hunch. But keep lines of communication open in case we get a better lead. I don't want you two sticking with a wild goose chase any longer than necessary.”

Liz acknowledged this with a nod, then left the Post Office for the second time in all of twenty minutes. She could still feel Red, so he was still alive; she was also aware that if she pushed any further, she would feel the same level of agony she'd felt before.

“So what's this hunch of yours?” Ressler asked, getting into the passenger's seat without her having to tell him to do so.

Liz glanced at him and frowned slightly. She liked Ressler. He was a good man, and a good partner. But she wished right now that he didn't have to come along. Any explanation she gave would slow them down. “It's a little hard to explain,” she said. “I just know the direction we should be going.”

“Okay.” Ressler drew out the second syllable, confused but willing to go with it. “So you're, what, tracking him? He hasn't had that chip in a long time, you know.”

She pressed her lips together at the other reminder of the last time Red had gone missing, and shook her head, her eyes on the road. When she didn't speak further, she heard Ressler sigh and mutter something under his breath. Then he said, “Fine. If it's one of those secret things between the two of you, fine. But tell me this at least: do you know if this has anything to do with Berlin?”

“I don't think so,” she said. “But I'm not sure.”

Somehow, Liz managed to divide her attention between her sense of Red's location and the road successfully. There were only one or two times that she noticed Ressler tense at any near-misses with her driving. But they were getting closer, she knew. She'd be pleased at her ability to do this if she didn't know for a fact what every second of delay was doing to Red.

As they rounded a corner, Liz nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone rang. Taking a deep breath, she answered it. It was Mr. Kaplan. “Are you getting close?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. I'll join you when you stop. But let me remind you I've also been tasked with keeping you safe, so please don't do anything reckless in an attempt to rescue him. He'd be very displeased if you were injured or captured in such an attempt.”

Liz narrowed her eyes. “I'm sure he would.”

“Hmm.” A sigh was audible over the phone, as if the woman could tell how little Liz cared about displeasing Red in this situation. “See you shortly, Agent Keen.”

“One of Reddington's people?” Ressler said, when she put the phone down.

“Uh huh,” she replied. “I think we're getting close.”

The streets started to become narrower and less friendly. The one they were on dead-ended, and Liz swore as she began to turn around. They still weren't close enough to continue on foot. Of course, there was a part of her that longed to get out of the car and hunt for him from the air, but she pushed aside that desire. Red hadn't had to spend time convincing her of the need to keep her true heritage secret.

They had just found another street that went through in the direction Liz knew they needed to be going when she heard him. _Lizzie_ , he said in her head, as clearly as if he were standing right in front of her, _please. Turn around and go home._ His mental voice was drenched in pain, though she could tell he was trying to sound normal.

“No,” she said out loud, drawing another strange look from Ressler. She clenched her jaw and repeated, _No, Red. I'm not going to leave._ They were very close now. She began looking for a place to park.

He sounded resigned when he spoke again. _All right. But please listen to Mr. Kaplan, and be smart about how you do this._ Then there was a pause, a spike in his pain levels, and he continued as if nothing had happened. _If they capture you, then I'm afraid this discomfort will all have been for nothing._

She swallowed as she parked on the street in front of a block of dilapidated apartments and abandoned businesses. “Discomfort” was what he called it – whatever kinds of torture they were inflicting on him. And he had just told her he was resisting, in part at least, to keep her safe. _I'll be careful_ , she said at last. _Is Dembe all right?_

_He was alive the last time I saw him, though not unharmed. I'm underground, in an empty parking garage, and I don't know where he is_ , Red informed her. Then his tone changed. _I'm sorry, Lizzie. I have to go now. Please remember what I said, and please … be careful if you happen to meet anyone … like us._

Liz had already gotten out of the car by this point, but she stopped moving at that. _What do you mean, like us? Do you mean--_ She stopped talking. She could still sense him, still knew he was within fifty yards of her, but now it was like it was muffled, somehow. _Red?_ she tried. There was no response. “Damn it!”

Ressler joined her on the sidewalk. “Did you lose him?”

“Sort of.” She pulled out her service weapon as she started toward the old office building in front of them. “Come on. This way.”

“Agent Keen! Agent Ressler!” The voice halted them in their tracks. It was Mr. Kaplan, getting out of the driver's seat of a large van along with half a dozen armed men. “Is this the place?”

Liz nodded. “He's in the parking garage,” she reported, “and he thinks Dembe is alive and on the premises as well, but he can't be sure.”

“Understood.” She barked a few orders at the men behind her, then turned back to Liz. “They're going in first. And although I am reluctant to attempt to force you to wait, I'll do what I have to in order to fulfill my orders.”

Liz sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Fine, I'll wait.” For a few minutes, she added silently.

Ressler, though clearly reluctant and still wondering what was going on, consented to wait as well.

Just under a minute later, the leader of the six-man team radioed in. “We have Dembe alive but unconscious on the main floor. Four guards taken out so far, no identification. Proceeding underground.”

Liz paced back and forth, as close to transforming from sheer agitation as she ever had been. “Do we have any idea who these people are?” she asked Mr. Kaplan.

The woman shook her head. “All we can guess is whoever is behind it is well-connected and has a great deal of resources available to them.”

“What makes you say that?” Ressler asked.

“My sources tell me that Mr. Reddington was attacked and taken in the middle of the day, in a public place,” she replied, “in a manner that suggests premeditation.”

Ressler met Liz's eyes and nodded. Anyone who could arrange something like that did sound like he or she had resources at their disposal. “So it could be Berlin, then.”

“He's one of the possibilities.”

Before they had any more time to wait anxiously, the radio crackled again and, to the accompaniment of what sounded like gunfire in the background, the team leader shouted, “We have Reddington! He needs medical assistance ASAP. Davis and Chan are staying with him; we are in pursuit of five hostiles.”

“That's it,” Liz declared. She pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Kaplan's voice was sharp.

“Calling for an ambulance, and then going in.”

Mr. Kaplan didn't try to stop her – which was good, since Liz wasn't sure how she would have reacted if that had happened. As she delivered the address to the 911 operator crisply and quickly, warning that the EMTs would need to wait until the scene was clear of hostiles, Liz moved toward the entrance. Ressler was right next to her. He had called in an update to Cooper, which Liz only vaguely registered.

They moved through the building rapidly. Dembe was where the team leader had reported; he appeared badly bruised but also looked to be regaining consciousness. Liz felt bad leaving him unattended, but she also knew he wouldn't want to be the cause of delay in making sure Reddington was all right, either. And Mr. Kaplan's team had said the first floor was clear.

By the time they got down the stairs, following the path the others had taken, the echoing sounds of gunfire were very faint. The hostiles must have fled the scene already, Liz thought. Then she saw two of the men Mr. Kaplan brought standing guard over Red's body – one standing guard, and one attempting to administer first aid, actually.

“Oh my God.”

Red was not moving, and the amount of blood on and around him was disturbing, to say the least. As Liz got closer, she saw that it seemed to have come from a deep gash on his left side. His bruised face was white under the blood smeared on it. The one visible injury didn't seem to account for how much was on the floor around him.

“Is the building clear?” Liz asked one of the men. She tried to keep her voice and breathing under control. Her gaze kept returning to Red's still form on the ground. “An ambulance is on the way.”

“Should be clear momentarily, ma'am,” said the man who wasn't currently attempting to staunch the flow of blood from Red's gash.

Liz nodded. She looked at Ressler for a moment, swallowed, and asked the other man, “How, uh, how is he?”

“His pulse is reasonably strong, and he's still breathing.” The man looked up and shrugged slightly. “That's all I can tell for sure.”

She bit her lip and took a glance around the parking garage. It was totally empty of cars or anyone other than their group – but there was something else visible on the ground, almost at the opposite edge from where Red was. She had a sudden theory about what it could be. Hurrying over, she crouched down to look at it. Her theory was confirmed. More blood. A large amount of it. “What the hell happened here?”

“Jesus,” Ressler breathed as he joined her.

“This has to have been recent, too,” she said, pointing at the liquid. It was darker than the pool of blood ini which Reddington was lying, but it still seemed fresh. “There's no way it's Red's, though. No one could lose that much blood and still be alive.”

Ressler nodded. “Believe me, I know,” he said, putting his hand to the healed bullet wound on his leg. He frowned and added, “But with how much Reddington has lost, maybe it's time I repaid my debt to the man.”

“No need for that just yet, Agent Ressler,” came Mr. Kaplan's voice from behind them. “The ambulance has arrived.”

Ressler left to meet the EMTs. Liz, meanwhile, stared down at the blood on the ground. She didn't want it to be Red's. It was far too much to have come from Red, and it didn't even look quite normal. But it was definitely blood, and... She stifled a gasp, looking around at the space they were in again. Yes, it was big enough – though it would have been a tight fit. But why, and how? And would Berlin have done this, without outright killing Red?

When she looked back toward the others, Mr. Kaplan was looking right at her. She moved her gaze to the blood, then back to Liz, and gave a small nod. It seemed she might have come to the same conclusion as Liz had. And now that Liz was allowing the thought, there was something to the scent of the blood that, disconcertingly enough, reminded her of Red.

Liz quickly crossed back to where the EMTs were loading Red onto a stretcher. He still hadn't shown any signs of waking, but his vital signs were holding steady according to the woman who had just finished starting an IV. “And Dembe? The man who was upstairs?”

“We're taking care of him as well, ma'am,” the woman assured her.

The whole party – minus Mr. Kaplan and her team – followed Red's stretcher upstairs and out of the building. Several FBI vehicles arrived just as the two injured men were being loaded into the ambulance, and Cooper was among the agents who got out. “Agent Keen,” he called out, after he had taken in the scene in front of him, “what's the situation here?”

“Reddington's people are trying to track down the men who were torturing Reddington, sir,” she summed up. “Reddington himself seems to have lost a lot of blood, but his vitals are stable.” Liz held on to that fact, as well as the fact that she could feel his presence in her mind – faint but still there. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that whoever had taken him might not only have known about his true nature, but have caused him significant harm while he was actually in his dragon form. The idea was mind-boggling. Why would Red have even shown himself in that shape? And why hadn't he simply killed the men who were tormenting him? Even in the relatively cramped space of the parking garage, it wouldn't have been hard for him to do.

“All right.” Cooper sighed. “We'll get the scene examined, and see if we can find any clues as to who was behind this. Obviously Berlin is a top suspect. Did Reddington's people give you anything about that?”

Liz passed on what Mr. Kaplan had theorized about the person behind the attack, and Cooper nodded. Then she paused. Before she could make her request, though, Cooper said, “I want you you and Ressler to accompany the ambulance to the hospital. I'll send another escort car as well. We're not taking any chances on whoever this is coming back to finish the job. Plus, we'll need to interview Reddington as soon as he's fit to talk.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, relieved.

Her relief faded a little, though, when as she turned to leave, he said, “At some point I'd like you to tell me how you knew where to find him, Agent Keen.”

She shot a guilty look over her shoulder at her boss but didn't stop moving.

~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of this story is finished, and will be posted soon.

~  
An hour later, Liz was sitting next to Ressler across from Red's hospital room. Red had been cleaned up and stitched up, and he had just finished receiving his much-needed blood transfusion. Throughout this entire process, he had not regained consciousness. Liz tried not to worry too much about this; the doctor had said there was no cause for alarm at this point, since his patient had obviously been through a lot of trauma. Dembe, on the other hand, had woken up. He was currently resting in a wheelchair in the same room as Reddington, at his insistence. Other than some bruising and a concussion, for which he had been treated, the man was fine.

“Well,” said Ressler, “it's nice that things have been pretty quiet so far.”

Liz gave a wry smile. “You mean, compared to the last time someone kidnapped and tortured Reddington on our watch? Yeah, I guess so.”

Ressler was about to say something further when his phone rang. He stood up and walked away a few paces as he answered it.

Liz stood up as well, feeling the need to stretch. That was when Dr. Fields came down the hall toward Red's room, holding a piece of paper and frowning.

“What is it, Doctor?” Liz asked, crossing the hallway to meet him.

“These are the results of the tox screen,” he said. “There's nothing notable, with one glaring exception – a drug I've never seen before.”

“What?”

The doctor showed her the printout, pointing to the name of a complex chemical compound that meant little to Liz. “It's this, here. All I can tell from its composition is that it's some kind of paralytic, but that's far from a full explanation.”

Liz remembered all too clearly how utterly helpless she had felt when the Stewmaker had used a paralytic drug on her. She clenched her jaw. “All right. Let us know if you're able to determine anything else about the drug,” was all she said.

Ressler came back shortly afterward. “That was Cooper,” he informed her. “He's not happy that Reddington hasn't woken up yet. He almost made it sound like he thinks Reddington is doing this just out of spite.”

Shaking her head, Liz glanced in at the criminal in question. He still hadn't moved, as far as she knew. “Did you tell Cooper what Dembe told us?”

“Yeah. Not that he had much time to catch anything useful.” Dembe had reported being attacked from behind while he and Reddington were “working” near that parking structure, and thus he had been knocked unconscious before he had seen any of the attackers. Ressler shrugged. “Anyway, he said we're supposed to stick with these two for another half hour, and then another shift is coming in.”

Liz frowned. She was uneasy about leaving Reddington's side, but couldn't think of a reason to give for staying longer than Cooper ordered.

“Did you just talk to Reddington's doctor? What did he say?”

Ressler's eyebrows rose when she told him about the strange paralytic drug that had been found in Red's bloodstream. “I guess that explains why he still hasn't moved,” he said. “And the doc can't identify the drug that was used?”

“No. Said he'd never seen anything like it before.” Liz let out her breath. To her, that strongly suggested the work of someone who knew about Red's draconic nature. Maybe whoever was behind this had drugged Red while he was in dragon form for some reason … but she still couldn't figure out why he had ended up transformed in that parking garage.

The two of them went back to sit down in their chairs across from Reddington's room. After a few moments, Ressler cleared his throat and looked at her. “So I have a crazy theory about earlier,” he said. “About how you managed to find Reddington.”

Liz stopped herself from rubbing her fingers against the scar on her hand. “Oh, yeah? What's that?” she asked casually.

Her partner continued to meet her gaze. “I'd say it was too crazy even to consider, but I really have no other way of explaining what I saw. Unless you and Reddington set all of this up beforehand, which, crazily enough, makes even less sense. I mean, you took us right to the place, and then you told that woman details you'd have no way of knowing unless you talked to Reddington – and I didn't see you talk to him on the phone at all.”

Liz looked away. Things had been happening so fast, and she clearly hadn't been as careful as she should have been. “Ressler--”

He kept going. “So I'm thinking you and Reddington, as nuts as it sounds, must have some kind of psychic or telepathic connection. Who knows – maybe that's why he sought you out in the first place: you both have that ability.”

“Ressler, that's--”

“Crazy, I know,” he said. His expression was hard to read. “But it's not too far off, is it?”

She wasn't going to be able to get him to let this go, she knew. All she could do was keep this as contained as possible. “That isn't why he sought me out,” she said finally, “as far as I know. But you're not totally wrong on the rest.”

His mouth dropped open. “What? Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She almost smiled at his shock. “Not this whole time, though. Just for the past couple of months.”

“Oh, just the past couple of months,” Ressler said, eyes still wide. “Well, that makes this much less weird.”

At that, she laughed once. “No, it doesn't, really. I promise you that.”

“Wait. He can't, like, read your thoughts, though, can he? And you can't—” He definitely looked disturbed now.

“No!” Liz felt herself blushing. “God, no. It doesn't work that way, for either of us.”

Another long moment passed, with Ressler still staring at her. Then he nodded and said, “Good, because I don't want to imagine what reading Reddington's thoughts would be like – or having him have access to yours.”

“Me neither,” Liz agreed, with feeling. She looked down at her hands. “Look, please don't tell anyone else about this, all right? I'm-- I'm still trying to figure out how to explain this to people at work in a way that won't get me locked up and dissected like a lab rat.” That was true enough.

Ressler seemed to get this. “All right,” he said. “As long as you aren't just going to try to keep hiding this forever.”

“Based on today, I don't think that's possible,” she admitted.

Liz was grateful that Ressler didn't keep plying her with questions for the rest of the half hour of their shift. She did catch him giving her considering glances more than once, but that was the extent of it. At least it seemed like he wasn't too creeped out by this 'telepathic connection' to even want to be near her now. She hoped that would stay true.

When Samar and the next group of agents arrived to stand watch, Liz decided to say goodbye to Dembe before she left. The man obviously sensed her unwillingness to leave, because he assured her he and Red would be fine. “I will call you as soon as Raymond wakes up – or he will do it himself,” he said with a smile.

“All right. Thanks, Dembe. Get some rest.” She returned the smile.

Ressler dropped her off several blocks from her latest motel. She had made it within sight of the place when a limo sped up from behind her and stopped at the curb. _What the hell?_

She had only managed to put her hand to her holster before the three men in the limo had their guns aimed at her head. “Put your hands up and get in,” one of them ordered.

Liz did as she was told. As soon as she was inside, they shut the door after her and relieved her of her weapon and her phone, none too gently. Then she was made to sit down between two of the armed men, on a seat across from a gray-haired man in a suit whose intense gaze immediately made Liz uncomfortable.

“So,” the man said, his cold black eyes piercing into hers, “you're the FBI agent who is Raymond Reddington's new protégée.” He smiled slowly. “Taken you under his _wing_ , has he? Such as it is.” His own remark amused him enough for a dry chuckle.

Liz felt her pulse skyrocket. She glanced at the guards next to her, and then back at the man. “You're the one who took Reddington. And you're a...” She trailed off.

“Oh, you can speak freely around my men,” he assured her with a wave of his elegant hand. The black stone on his ring finger distracted her for a moment. “They're trustworthy enough, and they all know that I'm a dragon. As I know that you are.”

Liz kept the fear off her face with effort. She guessed (was it a guess, or some kind of draconic intuition?) that this man would be a huge, black dragon, obviously very long-lived. He had already shown himself to be ruthless, and to have some kind of grudge against Red. It didn't take much to theorize that if he had wanted Red to die, he could have killed him. “What do you want?” she asked finally. Her voice only shook a little.

“What do I want? Many things, young lady.” The man cocked his head to regard her with a measuring stare. “And you are very young, aren't you? Perhaps not even past your first season's flight, hmm?”

She wished she had a better idea of what he was getting at with that last phrase.

“Well, that seems an unusual choice for my friend Raymond. It will certainly bear some consideration,” he mused. “But first things first: introductions. I'm known as Gordon Ambrose. And you are?”

“Special Agent Elizabeth Keen.” Since he had already revealed that he knew some of who she was, and that he had the resources to investigate further, Liz saw no reason to try to keep this hidden. But she also had no intention of letting this chance to learn more about her captor pass. “What do you have against-- against Reddington, Mr. Ambrose?”

Ambrose's eyes flickered. “Very pleased to meet you, Agent Keen,” was all he said. During this whole time, the limo had been driving in a vague northwesterly direction from her motel, but now he sat up. “Edward,” he called, “take the shortcut home, would you?”

The driver didn't respond out loud, but the vehicle took the next left down a side street. Then Ambrose turned his focus back on Liz. “As to your question, I'll just tell you that your Red and I go back many, many years, as does our quarrel. So to have found you, on the same day I was able to inflict pain on him directly, well...” He leaned forward, and Liz suddenly wished there wasn't a seat behind her back so she could lean away from him. “This bears some consideration, as I've said.”

Once again, with a great deal of effort, Liz forced herself not to flinch when Ambrose leaned close enough that she could smell his sour breath. He smiled, and sat back in his seat. “I'm beginning to see some of why Raymond likes you, Agent Keen,” he told her. “It's too bad for you he's, hmm, incapacitated at the moment.”

He fell silent after this, seeming content to let her sit there between her two armed guards while the limo brought them closer and closer to his house. Liz, meanwhile, was aware that she was more frightened even than she had been when she had been taken by the Stewmaker. She was beginning to guess what kinds of things this man might want to do with her – and if her guesses were correct, she needed to find a way out of this situation now.

But even as her eyes went to the door of the limo, Ambrose shook his head. “You must be young indeed, if you don't know enough to shield your strongest thoughts and emotions better than that, Agent Keen. My men would stop you before you managed an escape.”

At that, Liz couldn't hold back a sharp breath and a spike of panic. “You-- can hear my thoughts?”

“Not exactly, no,” he replied. “Just the strongest ones that are foremost on your mind. Your natural mental shield is strong enough to prevent my seeing more than that, unless I really tried to break past it. But doing that would be the height of rudeness and disrespect – an action civilized people reserve for only their most unworthy enemies.”

Liz filed that away for future reference, while also trying her best to strengthen her 'mental shield', as Ambrose had called it. She had little idea if she had succeeded, since Ambrose gave no sign either way.

They continued to travel until they were well outside of the city. Liz was finding it more and more intolerable to be in this enclosed space surrounded by her captors. She had to remind herself several times to stay calm, to keep breathing, and not to give in to her urge to transform and thereby make a very dramatic escape from the car. She was sure if she did so, Ambrose would follow her immediately, and his greater size and experience made it certain that her escape would be very temporary.

Finally, the limo pulled in through the open gates of an old mansion. It continued up the paved driveway and stopped in front of the imposing front steps. The driver got out to open the door for Ambrose.

“Accompany Agent Keen to my study,” he told the guards before he got out. “I'll be joining you there shortly, after I've taken care of some business.”

Liz and her escort were almost inside the house when the man called after her, “By the way, Agent Keen, my house is built very solidly, and will withstand a dragon's attempts to break out of it for at least long enough for me to notice and follow. So keep that in mind while you wait for me.”

She had in fact been thinking again about escape – but she had hoped her shield was now strong enough for him not to pick up on those thoughts. Maybe it had just been a guess on his part.

Liz was ushered into a dark room with an ebony desk at one end. While her guards took up their positions around her, weapons at the ready, Liz examined the room from where she stood. Most of the walls were lined with bookcases. The wall opposite the door, though, had one window, not as large as she might have expected, and one large oil painting that looked to be St. George slaying the dragon. Liz raised an eyebrow. She supposed that was meant to be ironic.

From her survey of the room itself, Liz moved on to the three men waiting with her. One was behind her, and the other two were on either side of her. The one behind her and the one to her right were looking straight ahead, not even acknowledging her, but the one on the left was openly staring at her. When she met his eyes, he leered. Liz glared in return. Anger was good, she told herself. It was what she needed right now.

As if in reply, Liz felt a very distant burst of anger, tinged with fear and pain. _Lizzie!_

She started, but otherwise tried not to react outwardly. None of the guards seemed to have noticed. _Red?_

_Lizzie, what happened? Where are you?_

_I've been brought to Gordon Ambrose's house. His men grabbed me on my way home._

His rage and dismay grew. _You need to get out if there's any way for you to do so, Lizzie. He's going to figure out the best way to use you to hurt me, and I'm sorry, but I can't stop him yet._

_I'll see what I can do._ Liz scanned the room again, and was about to tell Red more about her circumstances when she felt an increase in his pain levels. _Red, are you all right?_

_Don't worry about me, Lizzie_ , he replied. _Just concentrate on getting out of there. I'll try to contact you again when I'm closer._

_What?_ Liz frowned. _Red, the doctor said you're supposed to stay in the hospital at least overnight!_

But he didn't reply. Of course he didn't. Liz bit back a curse and resumed her scan of the room. If she forced her way past the guard in front of the door...

Just then she heard sounds of someone approaching, and then the door opened to admit Gordon Ambrose. Once again, his eyes locked onto hers right away. This time, the coldness and something else in them made Liz shiver.

“Change of plans,” he said, glancing briefly at the guards. “We're going to the laboratory.”

The guards quickly grabbed Liz's arms and hurried after Ambrose, who didn't seem inclined to wait for them. Liz was all but dragged out of the study, down a hall, and down a short flight of stairs. They went into a large, brightly-lit, sterile-looking room full of microscopes, beakers, and other lab equipment that Liz didn't recognize right away. More disturbing was the medical equipment taking up one side of the room – and the various white-coated people who looked up at her entrance.

“Everyone, out,” Ambrose ordered sharply. As soon as they were gone, he gestured to the men holding Liz, and they brought her over to where he was standing … next to a metal tray holding various syringes.

Liz's fear grew rapidly. She jerked her arms out of the grip of the guards and demanded, “What is this? What are you going to do to me?” Stay angry, she reminded herself. The guards were leaving the room now, she noted.

“My team of researchers has developed two very fascinating serums,” Ambrose said. His tone was calm, but he didn't seem as cool and collected as he had in the limo. “I've already used the first one today, on your friend Raymond.” He picked up a syringe with a faintly cloudy substance in it. “This one paralyzes after it forces any of our kind to return to their true form. And this one...” He laid the first syringe down, and picked up another. “This one lacks the paralytic compound, but has another useful compound added to it. It also has the transformative effect.”

Liz attempted to keep breathing evenly, even as she looked around the room again. There was enough space in here for her if she transformed, but she very much doubted there was room for two dragons, even if all the scientific equipment was swept out of the way. What the hell was this guy planning?

“I think you are Raymond's current greatest weakness, Agent Keen,” Ambrose continued. He had not set down the second serum. “I'm not entirely sure why he seems to care about you as he does, but the fact remains that he does. He would be absolutely furious to know that you had come to any harm at my hands – especially since I've made sure he can't stop me.”

He was coming closer again, and Liz swallowed. “But I'm not going to hurt you, exactly. No. You've never done anything personally to anger me, so I wouldn't do that. Instead, I'll just let nature take its course with you and me, after I give it a little push.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?” Her heart was pounding. She had an idea why she would want to stay in her human form, but she hoped she was wrong. Tom's last words from her first session with him after the change kept replaying themselves in her head.

“I'm sure you'll find it a little bit upsetting, at first, but not for too long,” said Ambrose by way of a reply. Even in the midst of her fear, Liz spared a moment to wonder if all other dragons did that answering-by-not-answering thing, or if it was just Red and this guy. “Not once you let your instincts take control.”

This did not sound good. It sounded like it was going where she had been afraid it would go. Liz took a breath, and allowed her disgust to be obvious in her tone. “So you're telling me that you want to, what – force me to go into heat, and then 'let nature take its course'? As revenge against Reddington?” She hadn't known about this facet of dragon biology. Not that foreknowledge would really have helped her in this instance.

“Baldly stated,” Ambrose said, with a slight smile, “but nonetheless accurate.” He was now within two feet of her. The syringe was still in his hand.

“And I don't get a choice in this?” When he shook his head, she scoffed and said, “So much for your pretensions of gentility.”

His eyes flashed, and he seized her left wrist, leaning in even closer. “Don't presume to lecture me with your _human_ ideas of morality, Agent Keen,” he hissed. “Your youth and inexperience with our world should be reasons for humility, not arrogant disrespect.”

All of his focus was on her face as he sought to intimidate her. Now was her chance. Liz reached out with the hand that Ambrose wasn't gripping and snatched the syringe. Before he could do more than cry out in rage, she pushed the plunger, spilling most of the serum onto the floor, and then threw it across the room. Then as he started to pull her toward him, she used her hand-to-hand combat training to twist free and strike at his face with her other elbow. While he staggered back, holding his bleeding nose, Liz ran for the huge bank of windows on one side of the room. She closed her eyes and began her transformation, mid-jump.

The glass shattered around her as she grew to her full size. It was thick, and some of the shards pierced even her dragon hide, but nothing seemed to have damaged her wings too badly. She had timed it right.

Behind her, Liz could hear Ambrose's outraged shouts turn to a dragon's roar. She pumped her wings as quickly as she could. Night was falling, and she didn't know where she was – but at least she had a few seconds' head start on her pursuer. And she was fairly certain she could fly faster and more agilely than he could.

_You will not escape from me, Elizabeth_ , Ambrose called from behind her. _I know this land, and I know all the places you could hide._

Liz didn't bother to respond. Instead, she climbed higher, scanning the terrain below as she did so. The wind stung as it rushed over the various cuts she had incurred, and she thought she was probably bleeding. The thought recalled to mind how Red had looked when they had found him, and her fury gave her an added burst of energy.

She glanced over her shoulder a few seconds later. Ambrose was, in fact, black in hue and very large. His wingbeats were slower than hers, but each one covered more ground. He was closing the distance between them. She could sense his triumph.

Desperately, Liz increased her speed. She couldn't keep this kind of flight up for too much longer, she knew. It was time to take another risk.

Without warning, she dove, still angling herself away from the black dragon. He took only a second to follow her into a dive, and as she expected he used his greater size to try to crowd her as soon as he could. She had to divide her attention between the rapidly approaching forest beneath her and the dragon above her that was already reaching out with his talons to seize her. At almost the last possible moment, Liz tucked into a roll, turning over completely and raking Ambrose's left wing with her own claws as she did so. He roared in pain again and lashed out. Even as he scored along her neck and shoulder, he hit the trees and immediately became tangled in the branches. He was no longer airborne.

Though the long scratch Ambrose had given her burned terribly, Liz managed to regain control just before she herself tumbled off into the canopy. She labored back into the air and kept going – slower than she could wish, but at least she was leaving Gordon Ambrose behind.

Liz wasn't sure how much longer she flew, and frankly after a while she stopped paying much attention. It was all she could do to keep going, trying vaguely to stay away from populated areas. Finally, as the sun finished setting, she almost crash-landed near the top of a small mountain or a very tall hill, somewhere that seemed isolated enough that she felt she could stop. She was exhausted and in pain, not to mention lost. But Ambrose had not followed her. She was sure of it.

Still catching her breath in huge gasps, Liz folded her wings and found a shallow cave to protect her from the cold wind of the evening. Even in her fatigued state, she realized the cold was going to be a problem. She could change back into her human form, but she wasn't sure how much that would help. Maybe having less surface area would at least mean she would lose less body heat.

After she could breathe more normally, Liz decided she'd better change back. She needed to be less conspicuous, anyway. Thankful as ever that whatever energy or magic allowed the change in the first place also allowed her to keep her outfit from before the transition, the human Liz made her way as far inside the cave as possible. She winced, touching the cut at the base of her throat and shoulder that was still bleeding. It was too bad there was nothing nearby she could use for first aid, she thought tiredly. Then she curled up against the wall and, in spite of various parts of her that hurt and the chill air, slept.

~  
Someone calling her name woke Liz very early the next morning. She opened her eyes and moved slightly – then wished she hadn't. She had apparently slept without moving at all for the whole night, and now she was stiff, sore, and cold. Really cold.

_Lizzie?_

She sat up, blinking. _Red, where are you?_ His voice sounded faint. She shivered as a breeze entered the cave, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

_Oh, thank God, you're conscious._ Relief was evident in his tone. _I'm coming to where you are, Lizzie. Just stay put._

Her neck and shoulder were throbbing, Liz noted, and several other cuts on her body and limbs started to make themselves known. She was also incredibly thirsty, and her head ached. She tried futilely to swallow past a dry throat.

_Lizzie, did you hear me?_ He sounded worried now. _Are you all right?_

Shivering again, Liz pulled her knees up to her chest. _I'm fine_ , she told him. _Just tired, and, um, a little cold._

_Of course you would be_ , said Red in an understanding tone, _after what you've been through, and then having to spend a night outside. I'll be there as soon as I can, but it would help me if you could tell me any landmarks you can see from where you are._

What she'd been through... Memories from yesterday that Liz would rather not have brought to mind started to come back in a rush. She took a shaky breath and stood up. Her headache worsened, but she walked to the entrance of the cave. Doing her best to ignore the cold air, she described what she could see from her vantage point to Red: the mountain she was on, the road she could see not too far in the distance, and the radio tower in the opposite direction. _Does that help?_

_Yes, thank you, that should speed things along considerably. See you soon._

Liz sat back down, nearer to the entrance of the cave. The motion pulled at the gash on her neck. She looked down at herself. Her shirt collar was stained with dried blood, and there were cuts and bruises on her arms. Her hands had patches of her blood dried on them as well. But compared to what could have happened... Her shudder this time had little to do with her need for warmth. She rubbed her face. _Red, is-- is Ambrose going to try to track us down? He was definitely still alive, and definitely angry, when I got away from him yesterday._

_We won't have to be worried about Ambrose anytime soon_ , was Red's confident response. _Or possibly at all, in fact, depending on if the delivery I arranged for him was received as I expect it was._

Liz supposed she should be concerned with the implications of that statement, but she couldn't bring herself to feel anything other than relief and satisfaction. _Good._

Red was quiet, though Liz got the impression that he wanted to say more. She sat and waited for some time, as the sun rose, and was grateful when the temperature rose at least a little bit along with it. Still, by the time Red spoke again, she was shivering constantly and her headache was becoming intolerable.

_Lizzie, Dembe and I are almost there._ Indeed, as she looked down, she could see a familiar vehicle approaching on the closest road. _Can you fly down to meet us? I'm sorry, I'm still not able to come to you right now. But no one else is around to observe, so you should be safe._

Liz thought of how Red had looked when she had seen him last, coupled with some of the comments Ambrose had made, and winced. She wouldn't ask him to fly up here right now. _I'll come down._

The car stopped as near to the base of the hill as was possible with the terrain. Liz tried to push aside her various aches and pains as best as she could. Then she transformed and launched out of the cave. The sun made it pleasant to glide down to where Red and Dembe were waiting. However, when she landed and changed back into her human form, all of her pain returned along with a wave of lightheadedness that meant she almost collapsed.

“Lizzie!”

Red was right there to catch her and hold her up. She closed her eyes for a few moments until the dizziness passed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I guess I must be dehydrated or something.”

“No apology necessary,” he replied. When he released her and she looked at him, she was glad to see he looked much better than he had in the hospital bed. But he was looking at her with concern, and his eyes traveled to the wound on her neck. “Ambrose did this to you?”

She nodded, regretting the gesture when it made her headache worse. Raising one hand to her temple, she managed a smile. “But I got him first.”

He returned the smile and said, “I'm sure you did. Let's get you somewhere more comfortable, and we can talk some more when you're feeling better.”

Other than drinking a bottle of water that Dembe handed to her as soon as she got into the car, and feeling a blanket draped over her shortly afterward, Liz remembered nothing of the trip back to civilization.  
~


	3. Chapter 3

~  
Red's voice brought her awake. She could feel it resonating through her, and she realized she must have fallen asleep leaning against his shoulder. He wasn't talking to her at the moment, and although he sounded faintly irritated, his voice was still low. “I appreciate your concern as well as your desire to understand what's been going on, Harold, but I've already told you that both Agent Keen and I are fine, and that we'll come in and talk to you later today. All right?” During the pause that followed, he saw Liz looking up at him. “All right, Harold.” He hung up and passed the phone back to Dembe in the front. “My apologies for waking you, Lizzie,” he said, “but we're almost to the house, anyway. Feeling any better?”

Liz sat up, yawning and pulling the blanket back over herself. She wasn't cold, and her headache was much less noticeable. “Yeah, some. How long was I asleep?”

“About an hour,” Red told her. “It's just past six thirty now.”

She made a small sound of acknowledgment. It was hard to comprehend how much had happened in the past twelve hours. Before she could dwell on that too much, though, her stomach growled.

Smiling, Red said, “We'll have breakfast before we get into any of the weightier topics for discussion, shall we?”

“I can't argue with that,” Liz replied. Then she grimaced, looking down at the blood stains on her hands. “But I think I'd like to clean up first, actually.”

“Of course.” Concern was back in his expression. “There'll be a first aid kit available for you in the bathroom.”

They arrived a few minutes later. Liz kept the blanket wrapped around herself as Red ushered her inside. She tried not to think too much about the events of the past day, or the fact that there was a suitcase full of her clothes in the bedroom adjoining the bathroom that Red said she could use. It was a relief to take a long, hot shower, even though the water made all of her cuts – the small ones and the large one inflicted by Ambrose – sting and in some cases start to bleed again. She dried herself off as carefully as she could, and then applied bandages to those parts of the largest gash that looked like they needed it. Some sections of it had already scabbed over.

She got dressed, dried her hair a little, and emerged from the room. Breakfast was ready. As promised, it was free of any stressful or serious topics of conversation. Liz concentrated mainly on eating her fill, aware that Red was eating with nearly the same enthusiasm. At least this time they were both using silverware, she thought with some amusement.

“That's better,” Red said when he was finished, wiping his mouth on a napkin and sitting back with a sigh. “Now, Lizzie, if you're finished as well, what would you like to discuss first?”

Liz put down her fork and used her own napkin. She had been considering this question already. “Well, first of all,” she said, “any updates on Gordon Ambrose and his band of thugs?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he replied. His smile was broad, but his eyes were hard. “It turns out the delivery I arranged had the results I hoped. Gordon's alive – but he won't be in any position to trouble us ever again, barring any miraculous interventions.”

“Do I want to know any more details?”

“I think it would be best if we left it at that. But I'm confident that in the unlikely event that either of us have any reason to have further dealings with Gordon in the future, he'll be motivated to be significantly more friendly.”

Liz once again felt like she would have once been disturbed by this revelation and its implications, but once again she couldn't summon up anything close to that. She just nodded. “My next question is, what did he do to you?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” said Red. He frowned. “I know you two had a midair confrontation, but I-- could also tell that wasn't all of it.”

Liz clasped her hands together in front of her, not meeting his eyes. “I asked you first. He told me he used a drug his scientists developed that paralyzes us after forcing us to transform on you – but I also saw a lot of blood in that parking garage, in more than one location.”

“Then you have pretty much the whole story already,” Red said. “Thankfully, the drug wore off before any onlookers arrived, and I was given a transfusion at the hospital. I'm fine now, as you can see.”

“But that much blood couldn't have come from just--” Liz stopped, as she put together the pieces with the veiled gloating comments Ambrose had made. Under his wing... She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God. Red...”

“Please, Lizzie, there's no need to get so upset on my behalf,” he said, covering her other hand with his for a moment. “They will heal. Not right away, but they will. I don't fly very often these days, anyway. And I have you to thank for getting there fast enough to make sure Gordon didn't have time to go any further.”

She swallowed at that thought. “But if I'd gotten there sooner--”

“Lizzie, stop,” he cut in, gently but firmly. “I truly appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. What about you?”

Shrugging, Liz touched the bandaged cut at her throat. “Uh, you already saw this. It was really just that, and before that he made some disgusting comments and threats.”

Red's expression grew dangerous. “I see.” He didn't say anything else out loud at first, though she caught something from his thoughts about regretting having left Ambrose alive at all. Before Liz could respond to that, though, he just said, “I'm very glad you escaped before he followed through, then – and I'm so sorry you went through any of it in the first place.”

“Yeah.” Nodding, Liz dropped her gaze again. Then she remembered. “Oh. Um, you should probably know that Ressler figured it out. Or at least, he figured out that we can communicate telepathically. It was kind of impossible to keep him in the dark, since he was with me when I was tracking you down.”

“Interesting,” said Red after a pause. “What exactly does dear Donald know? Anything more than that?”

“Just that,” Liz said. “And that it, uh, hasn't always been this way. I asked him to keep it to himself.”

“And he agreed?” His voice was calm, but Liz knew him well enough to see the tension.

“For now. I told him I don't want to have government scientists treat me like a lab rat, and he saw my point.” She sighed. “But he expects me to tell people at work, eventually.”

Red smiled. “Of course he does.”

“I'm sorry, I should have been more careful,” Liz began again, but he held up a hand.

“Please, Lizzie, how could I blame you? I'm the one who spoke to you while you were trying to find me – and if we hadn't talked, it would have taken longer for you to do so.” He brushed a crumb off his shirtsleeve. “Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least Agent Ressler is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt by this point in your partnership.”

“Yeah, but I'm not sure how long I can put him off,” Liz said with a frown.

“Yes, the man is nothing if not dogged,” Red said. “But I think we're in agreement that the FBI cannot find out about even this much of our true natures, am I right?”

Wondering where he was going with this, Liz said, “Ideally, yes.”

“Then I'm going to tell you about another talent our kind possesses, and suggest we make use of it on your partner.”

She started to shake her head. “No. Don't tell me. We can … wipe people's memories? Glamor them?”

Laughing outright, Red said, “I wouldn't have taken you for a fan of vampire novels or television shows, Lizzie. 'Glamoring', really?” When she just glared at him half-heartedly, he took the hint and continued, “Yes, we do have the ability to alter people's memories, provided they're human.”

“Okay.” Liz tried to assimilate this new piece of information. “So I just need to get him alone, and then make him forget what he saw?”

“Essentially. Or if you prefer,” Red suggested, “you can make it so he thinks he remembers me calling you. Of course the details still won't make perfect sense, but he'll be much more inclined to ignore any inconsistencies when they really are just details.”

Liz pondered this. She didn't like the idea of messing with Ressler's head, but she wasn't sure whether it was worse than how she had been lying to him and hiding the truth from him before. No – it definitely felt worse. But she also knew the value of making sure this secret stayed hidden. “Is there a risk of this causing permanent damage?” she asked.

He nodded once. “Yes, there is a risk. But only if alterations are made to the same person's memories, over and over again. That just adds to the motivation to keep any such alterations from being necessary, wouldn't you say?”

She scoffed. “And that makes it okay, as long as we're careful?”

“If we want to stay alive, and free from interference by government scientists as you pointed out, this is what we have to do,” was Red's response, infuriatingly logical. “How do you think our kind has managed to stay hidden so well over the centuries?”

Liz got to her feet, starting to pace. “I understand what you're saying, but I'm still not sure I can do this,” she said after several seconds. “I mean, this is...” She trailed off, recalling how Ambrose had criticized her for her human ideas of morality. She wondered. The thought of hearing something similar from Red made her distinctly uneasy.

“Would you like me to do it instead?” he offered. “Would that be easier for your moral code?”

That was a little too close to what she had just been thinking about. She was about to tell him sharply to stay the hell out of her thoughts, and also that whichever of them did it, it wouldn't matter in the end, since she'd still be complicit. But then something else occurred to her. “Damn. I still have to explain to Cooper how I knew where to find you, too.”

“He did mention something about that when he called,” Red confirmed, “but I think a simple deceit to the effect that you heard me mention that site once would throw him off our trail, at least.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I guess,” she said skeptically. At Red's insistence, she sat back down, and poured herself another cup of coffee. “But Ressler gets to have his memories messed with.”

“Lizzie, you act like we're discussing a lobotomy or something equally crude,” he said. “This process can be very delicate and very precise, and whichever of us ends up doing it will make sure that only the pertinent memory is affected. Donald need never even notice, I promise you.”

“All right, we'll-- we'll talk more about it later,” she said, putting a hand to her forehead. She was going to give in, she knew, but she would finish dealing with the issue later. Red looked smug as he no doubt came to the same conclusion. “What time did you tell Cooper we'd come in to talk to him?”

Red said he hadn't given him a specific time, though he had wanted one, naturally. “Now, what else did you want to discuss, Lizzie?”

“Is Ambrose allied in any way with Berlin? Or was he, I guess?” she added, taking into account what Red had told her about Ambrose's current state.

Red pondered this for a few seconds. “I don't believe so, no,” he said at last. “Or if he was, he just made himself a target as well, by capturing first me and then you, and then letting us both survive relatively unscathed. That certainly doesn't fit with Berlin's agenda.”

“But … you do think Berlin is one of our kind?”

“I don't think so. I know so.” He was matter-of-fact.

“Right.” Liz bit her lip. She had almost forgotten that Red had met the man face-to-face in order to retrieve his ex-wife from Berlin's clutches. Of course she had met him once, too, but that had been before her first transformation. She suddenly wondered how many other times he and Red might have met, without Red bothering to tell her.

“Speaking of Berlin,” Red said, leaning forward, “I don't suppose you're interested in telling me anything about this source of yours with ties to his operation yet, are you?”

Liz blinked, but shook her head. “I'm not sure what you're talking about.” She might not be totally certain how she was going to handle the Tom situation once she got what she wanted from him, but she knew that the moment she told Red, it would no longer be under her control. And she wanted it – she wanted _him_ – to be under her control. All of this flashed through her mind quickly, while she hoped her mental shield was strong enough to keep Red from seeing it.

He sighed, looking tired. “All right. Have it your way, Lizzie. We can keep playing this game for a little while longer.”

She kept her expression carefully blank. She wasn't going to let him manipulate her into revealing this before she wanted to. It wasn't like she was keeping anything from him that he actually needed to know.

“Then on a similar kind of topic,” he said, “are you going to keep insisting on staying in those terrible motels for the foreseeable future? You know I have a perfectly good network of safe houses that you'd be more than welcome to make use of. Every single one of them is better than those awful, dull, cookie-cutter rooms you're using. No architectural or artistic imagination! Ugh!” He gave a theatrical shudder.

Liz hid a smile, but shook her head again. “No, thanks. I'll survive the unimaginative accommodations for a while longer – but I tell you what: I'll let you know if they get to be too much.”

“Good,” said Red, with a real smile of his own. “Then unless you have any objections, I'm going to make a few phone calls, and you can either rest some more or find a book from the library. I was thinking I'd teach you about modifying memories after that.”

There was no point in fighting him on this subject, Liz decided. She was going to need to be more well-rested to deal with this, she figured, so she just nodded and went back toward the room that had been designated hers. It didn't take her long at all to fall asleep.

A knock on her door woke her some time later. She looked in vain for a clock in the room to let her know how long she'd been sleeping, but the room was free of any time-keeping devices – and of course her phone was somewhere in the custody of Ambrose's goons. “Yeah?” she called, running a hand through her hair. The cut at her neckline twinged.

“Raymond is ready to speak to you about what you discussed, if you're ready,” came Dembe's voice through the door.

“Uh, yeah, I'll be out in a minute,” she replied. “Thanks.”

Liz yawned as she got out of bed. She still didn't feel completely recovered from the exertions of yesterday and her poor sleep last night, but at least she felt better overall. Hopefully, it was enough for her to grasp the finer points of what Red wanted to teach her. She sighed. Despite her lingering worries about this skill she apparently possessed, she couldn't deny its usefulness.

When she came back into the sitting room where she and Red had eaten breakfast before, Liz's eyebrows rose. Red was there, with Dembe standing in attendance close by – and in the chair next to Red was a man whose hands were tied behind him, and whose mouth was gagged. He looked, unsurprisingly, terrified. Dembe had a gun by his side.

“Ah, Lizzie,” said Red brightly, “come and sit down. We all know a new skill needs to be learned through both observation and practical experience, so I brought someone in to help us with that. Meet Mr. Devon Williams.”

“What the hell?” Liz sat down on the couch next to him as directed, even as she demanded, “Red, who is this? Do you really expect me to just--”

“Mr. Williams here is lucky enough to be the most recent person caught trying to interfere in one of my business deals,” Red went on as if she hadn't spoken. “I say lucky, because normally if I'm not present at one of these deals and my people catch someone doing something he shouldn't be doing, they're authorized to deal with him as they see fit.” He gave Mr. Williams a hard look, and the man gulped audibly. “But I instructed that he be brought here, instead, where he might be of real use.”

“So you're going to mess with his memories instead,” said Liz.

“No, we're both going to do our share,” corrected Red. “But I'll go first, so you can observe.”

Liz tried to marshal an argument that Red would listen to, but realized there was none. Besides, in this case this man might walk out of here a little bit confused but otherwise not worse for wear, which was better than he could have expected. And now that they'd talked about what they were going to do in front of him, they had no choice. As Red had no doubt planned it. “Fine.”

“All right.” Red sat forward. “The first thing to keep in mind is to tap into all the power you have available to you. That's what drives this. But keep a light touch, or you'll affect more than the limited memories you want to target.” He met Liz's gaze to see that she got this, and then said, “Watch carefully.”

Predictably, as soon as Red removed Mr. Williams' gag, the man started to babble, “P-- please, Mr. Reddington, I can make it up to you, you don't need to--”

But Red cut him off, with a tone of voice that sounded different than any Liz had heard him use before. She had heard threatening and menacing from him, of course, but this was more than that. “Stop talking.” He was staring directly into his prisoner's eyes, and the man fell silent immediately. “Now, Devon, do you recall where you were last night, when my men found you?”

Eyes wide, Williams nodded.

“I want you to forget you were ever there, and forget anything about the meeting you witnessed,” commanded Red. “And you'll never work for whoever hired you for this again.”

The man nodded again, not taking his eyes off Red's.

Without looking away, Red spoke to Liz in a normal tone. “It's your turn, Lizzie. You can make sure he doesn't remember anything we said about our ability, hmm?”

Liz felt unaccountably nervous all of a sudden, but she crouched down in front of Williams. She glanced at Red, who only then looked up. “It'll come pretty naturally to you. Don't worry,” he said.

Williams had started to look confused, but when Liz took a breath, focused her mind, and stared into his eyes, he froze again. There was a strange jolt from the energy of her dragon form, and then Liz found she could almost see the memory she wanted to target. “Mr. Williams,” she began, and her own voice sounded bizarrely resonant to her ears, “I want you to forget any conversation you might have heard between me and Mr. Reddington here. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Williams said after a moment.

Liz was about to stop, but then she thought of something else. “After you leave, in fact, you'll forget you were ever here, as well. All you'll know is that it's not safe to be in the vicinity.”

When she was satisfied that the man would do as she said, Liz stood up. Her heart was still pounding, but this thing seemed to be finished. Red, who she had felt watching her the whole time, looked very pleased. He smiled and said, “Dembe, please usher our guest out, would you?”

After Dembe and Williams had left the room (Williams with a rather vacant look on his face), Red patted the cushion next to him. “Sit down, Lizzie. The first time can be a bit disconcerting,” he said. “But you did well.”

She sat. “That-- It looked and felt more like hypnotism than anything else,” she said.

“You're not wrong,” said Red, inclining his head. “Though of course, these effects don't just wear off conveniently when the audience leaves.”

“Yeah.” Then she thought of something, and turned to regard him suspiciously. “Wait a minute: can we only use this for memories, or is it possible for us to hypnotize people in other ways?”

“You mean, did I build up my network of connections and business dealings in the criminal world by hypnotizing people to do my bidding, instead of establishing all of it through good, old-fashioned hard work?” Red asked mildly. “Tell me, Lizzie, would that really make a difference to you?”

“That's not what I meant. Not the only thing I meant,” Liz said. She resisted the urge to sigh again at the man's talent at avoiding direct answers, as well as his keen guesses. “Could you please just answer the question?”

“Yes, it's possible for us to give pureblood humans the occasional little push in the direction we want them to go.” Red folded his hands. “Pushing too much and too often carries the same risk as I described earlier: permanent brain damage. But it's a nice ace to have up your sleeve.”

“I'm sure it is,” muttered Liz. She thought about Tom, and some ideas started to take root.

Red chuckled. “Well, well. Whoever is about to be on the receiving end of that positively wicked look in your eye, I certainly don't envy them.”

Ignoring this, Liz stood up again. “All right. Uh, what time is it now?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Red, standing as well. “I'd forgotten. Gordon had his people send back your service weapon and your phone, as a gesture of good faith.” He picked up a package from a table near the entryway of the house. When he handed it to her, he added, “It's about ten AM. Do you want to go in to work now?”

“Yes.” She opened the box and took out her phone. “I'll call Cooper, let him know I'm on the way. You're coming, too, right?”

“For a few minutes. I'll have Dembe bring the car around,” he said. Then he narrowed his eyes slightly. “Are you prepared to do what needs to be done regarding Agent Ressler?”

“I am,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. She knew it was necessary, and knew how to do it now, but that didn't mean all of her doubts and guilt were gone. Whether he saw her mixed feelings or not, Red didn't say anything more about it.

~  
Their trip to the Post Office took a slight detour when Red noticed that Liz had bled through her bandage.

“You need stitches, Lizzie. We'll stop by the drop-in clinic on the way,” he had said. Liz had wanted to be annoyed with his assumption that she wouldn't object to this, but there were two good reasons not to be: one, she obviously did need stitches if the injury Ambrose had inflicted was still bleeding, and two, she could tell this unilateral decision came out of concern.

Liz had gripped the edge of the doctor's examination table while the doctor on call gave her five stitches along the deepest, widest part of the gouge at her neckline. The man had accepted her explanation that she had been attacked with a sharp object without asking for more details, but he insisted that she get her tetanus booster. Liz had acquiesced. She had no idea what other kinds of things she might have been exposed to, but at least the nurse had cleaned the wound again, thoroughly. And at least Red had waited in the lobby.

After that they had finally gone in to the Post Office. As Red had predicted, when Liz told her boss that she had remembered an offhand comment Red had made about the location of the parking garage and guessed that might be where he was, Cooper raised an eyebrow but didn't press further. He was very relieved that she had escaped from Gordon Ambrose's hold with minimal injuries, as was Ressler. Reddington had already told Cooper on the phone that she had suffered some cuts when she fled through a window – truthfully enough.

“I've had Aram researching this man Ambrose since Reddington called earlier this morning,” Cooper informed her. “He and Agent Navabi have worked up quite a dossier on him, which I'm sure you'd like to see.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Have any teams been dispatched to his home?”

“They have,” Ressler put in. “It's deserted, and the place is a wreck. Looks like a bomb went off in the study, and there's blood that we're guessing is a match for Ambrose. No body, though.” He gave her a sidelong glance as they all left Cooper's office. “You and Reddington wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“I wouldn't. You'd have to ask Reddington yourself.”

By then, they had arrived downstairs, where Aram was at his computer. Samar and Reddington were standing behind his chair. Aram smiled when he saw Liz approaching. “Agent Keen! Good to see you back, in one piece and everything.”

“Thanks, Aram,” she replied, returning the smile. “It's good to be back.”

“Your teammates have found out quite a number of interesting things about our friend Gordon,” Red announced, “some of which I didn't even know before.”

“High praise,” muttered Ressler, and Red nodded as Samar hid a smirk.

“And on that note, I'll leave you all to your investigating,” Red said then. He gave Liz a quick but significant look before he left, and Liz resisted the urge to snap at him telepathically that she didn't need his reminder.

In fact, Liz had a hard time paying attention to Aram's summary of their findings on Ambrose. She was too busy trying to decide how she was going to do what needed to be done with Ressler. She heard Aram say that the man was very rich and had an interest in a variety of areas, from scientific research to art, and that prior to this there had been little linking him in any concrete way to any criminal activity. None of that surprised her. The only thing that really made her pause was that although Ambrose owned several properties scattered across the eastern seaboard, the nearest one (in northern Maryland) was listed as his permanent residence. That had to be the house where she had been held. “Wait – that's where he lives?” Liz crossed her arms. “In that case, why the hell did he wait until now to attack Reddington? He had to have known he's been local for some time now.”

“I asked Reddington the same question,” Samar said, “but he either didn't have an answer, or declined to share it with us.”

Ressler scoffed. “I'm thinking the latter. But if you asked him, Keen, maybe you'd actually get something useful out of him.” He accompanied this comment with a pointed look.

Ignoring, as usual, the way everyone in the office seemed to perk up when Reddington's interest in her was mentioned overtly, Liz just nodded. “Maybe. Was there anything else, Aram?”

“Uh, not yet,” he said. “Unless you want to know about his favorite European painters, or where his offshore accounts are located.”

“Not at the moment, no,” she replied. “Thanks. Ressler, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

Her partner followed her around the corner, and waited while Liz looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot. Then he spoke. “Look, sorry about what I said back there. I didn't mean to--”

“Don't worry about it,” Liz cut him off. She sighed. This was the moment of truth – but now that they were both here, her resolve was wavering.

“You're not planning to tell anyone else about this thing, are you?” Ressler asked quietly.

Liz took a moment to look up at meet his eyes. Then she shook her head. “Reddington doesn't even want you to know as much as you know – and he has a point.”

“Whoa, wait a minute, Liz,” he said, voice rising before she glared at him and he lowered it again. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What does he want you to do?”

“He just-- he wants to be sure that you're not going to say anything,” Liz said, dropping her gaze again. This was the truth, but Ressler would never guess at the method Red wanted her to employ. “It doesn't just affect me, you know.”

“I know,” Ressler said, after a pause. His expression was serious. “And I won't say anything, if you're really sure about this. But you're going to have to be a lot more careful if you don't want anyone else to find out.”

Liz nodded, with a sheepish smile. “Yeah.” She took a breath, and then with a silent apology, took a cautious look into his mind to see if he truly meant what he had just said. There was no hint that he was lying. She withdrew. She knew Red would say Ressler could still reveal their secret unintentionally, and so she needed to make sure that couldn't happen – but the idea still bothered her. Maybe it had something to do with the holes in her own memory: how little she remembered of her childhood before Sam. Whether that was why or not, changing or erasing her friend's memories felt like crossing a line that she could never take back. On the other hand, if Red found out she hadn't followed through here, he would take it upon himself to do the job. He had already made that clear.

“What's the problem, Liz?” Ressler asked, watching her in concern.

“Nothing. It's just...” Liz looked around again, and stayed silent as an analyst walked past them. Once the guy was out of hearing range, she took another deep breath. There was no way around this. She stared into Ressler's eyes and heard her voice take on the strange, resonant quality she'd only heard once before. “I need to be sure you won't let anyone else know you know about this, Ressler – and you have to make sure Reddington especially doesn't know that you know. In fact, avoid the whole topic as much as possible. Can you do that?”

Ressler's blank expression made her feel like the worst kind of traitor as he nodded and said, “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Good.” Liz blinked and looked away, patting him on the arm. “Thanks, Ressler,” she said, managing to summon up a smile that she hoped was believable.

He blinked as well, confused for a second, and then smiled in return. “Yeah. Uh, no problem.”

She had to exercise all of her control to keep her guilt from showing as they walked back to join the rest of the team. She had been as light-handed as possible. She hadn't even really messed with his memories. But it didn't matter; Ressler trusted her, relied on her as she did him, and had even agreed to hide a fact about her that he had to find disturbing for a number of reasons – and in return, she had hypnotized him, forcing him to remain silent. The fact that she was protecting him by having done this didn't make her betrayal feel any less terrible.

“Hey, you okay, Liz?” Ressler asked, and his genuine care felt like a knife to her gut.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Liz lied. “Just, um, just a little sore, I guess.” She gestured vaguely at the cut on her shoulder and neck.

“I'd offer you something for the pain, but, uh, recent events being what they are, I don't want you getting any wrong ideas.”

Liz smiled. “Thanks for the thought. But really, I'll be fine. And you're … all right?” She hadn't checked in with him on that particular issue in the past few days.

“Yeah,” he said, without hesitation. “Thanks.”

Liz felt guilt rise up to choke her again. She didn't deserve his gratitude. She did her best to focus on the rest of the day's work, and on sharing all of the information she had gathered on Ambrose herself – all of it that she could share, that is. Cooper, who had joined them, took pity on her and sent her home early.

Perhaps she should have gone straight to her latest hotel room, to relax, recuperate, and try to process the day's events. Instead, Liz went directly (or sort of directly; if Red had someone tracking her she didn't want to make it easy for him) to the boat, to Tom's cell. She had a strong feeling this use of her latest newly-discovered power would be much more satisfying, and much less troubling.

Liz pushed open the door and entered the dank room. For a few seconds, she just looked at the man who had once been her husband, and he did likewise with her. Then he stood up slowly, pointing at the wound on her neck. “What happened there? Are you all right?”

She shut the door behind her. “I learned something very interesting this morning,” she said in a conversational tone, coming a few steps closer to him. “I wonder if you know about it, too. It has to do with an ability that people like me have – me and your boss, I guess.”

Tom's eyes widened just a bit. “What ability?”

“I think I'd rather show than tell,” she said, and took one more step toward him. However, when she met his eyes and attempted to reach into his mind, there was much more resistance than she was expecting. She pulled back, unable to hide her surprise. “But-- you're not a dragon.”

Tom, who had flinched when she began, now looked faintly confused himself. He didn't seem to know what she had just tried. “No, I'm not. I thought you knew that already. And what does that have to do with what you wanted to show me?”

Liz frowned. Red had told her this would work on any human … so maybe Tom had some dragon ancestry, not enough to be able to transform but enough to have natural defenses against this? She decided she might as well ask about his ancestry – and perhaps she could at least tell if he lied or not when he answered.

“I think I do have some, somewhere a few generations back,” Tom told her. He raised an eyebrow. “Why is that important?”

She shrugged and tried to access his mind again, this time with the more defined goal of finding out exactly what he knew about dragons. She encountered the same resistance, but she was expecting it this time. With a little more effort, she was through. Then she asked him what she wanted to know.

He didn't reply right away, and Liz got the feeling he was more aware of what was going on than either Ressler or the man Red's people had taken into custody this morning. But then he gave in, and through gritted teeth told her, “I-- I know about the existence of several dragons, including you, Berlin, and Reddington.”

“I know you know that,” Liz said. “Keep going.”

“I know that most of you who are left have human blood, too, which is why you can look human,” Tom continued, still regarding her with a half-bewildered, half-angry expression. He clearly didn't want to keep going, but she didn't let up. “They told me when to expect you would transform for the first time, and what to expect from it. They told me...” He paused.

“Keep. Going.” Liz pushed harder, disregarding his answering wince.

“Like I said a few weeks ago, they told me there aren't many known female dragons left,” he said. “At least, not ones that don't already have a mate. Which makes you somewhat of a rare commodity.”

She had to work to maintain her concentration after she heard this. If that meant she was going to have to deal with more behavior like that of Gordon Ambrose... Liz clenched her jaw. “What else?”

“You have very long lifespans,” Tom said, “and a high tolerance for pain, although you also are vulnerable to cold especially in your dragon forms. And … that's really all I know.”

It seemed like he was telling the truth – and Liz took pleasure from the fact that she could be more certain now. She never had to believe her ex-husband's lies again. She never had to deal with his evasions of the truth, either. “All right,” she said. “What do you know about Berlin?”

At this, Tom's eyes widened and he took a step back, though he didn't break her gaze. “I-- I can't tell you much more than I've already told you, Liz.”

“What?” This was not supposed to happen. She could do this – she had this ability. She had proven it to herself already several times today. So how was it that Tom was resisting so well?

“I can't tell you,” he repeated. “I _can't._ ”

Just as she was about to push harder, frustrated and feeling like a failure, Liz thought of something. What if Berlin had done what she was doing to Tom now? What if he had ordered Tom not to tell anyone, much like Liz had told Ressler to keep what he knew to himself? “Berlin told you not to tell anyone what you know about him?” she asked.

Slowly, Tom nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” she muttered, sighing. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

“If you let me out of here, I can make contact and set up a meeting,” he replied. “I can get him to be at a location at a certain time, and then you can do what you want with him.”

“Uh huh.” He had told her this before. All it proved to hear him repeat it now was that he truly believed this was possible. Liz pulled out her phone and checked the time. “Okay, Tom, I'm going to go now.” She thought for a moment. Did she want to have him forget what she had just done, or not? A part of her that she didn't want to examine too closely thought she should let him stew in the knowledge that she could take what she wanted from his mind (with a few exceptions). But she also didn't want to give him any advantage with that knowledge. Perhaps the small percentage of dragon heritage he had meant he could build up his own mental shield if he knew there was a reason to do so. “You're going to forget what I did to get the information I got out of you today,” she commanded. “All you'll know is that I did get something I wanted from you.” Then she broke off her efforts, and watched as Tom's gaze lost its blankness. The faint confusion that had been present before intensified.

“What-- what just happened?” he asked.

Liz just smiled. “I'll be back later.” She shut the door on his usual protest, begging her to tell him how long she was going to keep him chained up.

~


	4. Chapter 4

~  
One Week Later

As she left the Chinese place where she was now getting her takeout dinner several times a week, Liz felt a moment of unease – a sensation of being watched that made her want to hurry to her car. Instead, she kept going at the same pace. When she got to her car door, she took a discreet look around the street. Nothing stood out to her. She decided she was probably just being paranoid, and started the short drive to her latest motel room. No doubt her usual paranoia was only exacerbated by her recent poor sleep, and the bizarre dreams she'd been having when she did manage to sleep.

But when she got to the motel, her unease returned. There was an unfamiliar SUV in the parking lot of the place, one spot down from where Liz had been parking the past two days. The backdoors were open, and someone was leaning against the driver's side door. Waiting for her, apparently. The woman, who Liz at first would have estimated to be in her late forties, nodded to her. Then Liz noticed the two bodyguards in the car. She took another look at the woman, and confirmed her guess: she was a dragon. Liz couldn't actually explain how she knew, but there was something about her appearance, as there had been with Ambrose.

Slowly, Liz parked the car in her accustomed spot, which happened to be right next to the woman, and got out. There was nothing hostile in the stranger's demeanor, but Liz wasn't going to risk anything. With her hand ready to go for her service weapon, she cleared her throat and said, “What do you want?”

The woman smiled as her guards exited the car. “I'm not here to threaten or coerce you in any way, Agent Keen,” she said. “I know you haven't had much in the way of positive experiences with our kind, but I'm only here to help.”

“Help?” This didn't reassure Liz at all. “In what way?”

“You haven't had any chance to interact with other females of our kind, have you?” she said. It wasn't really a question. “There are several topics – one in particular – that it might be useful for you to have my perspective on.”

Liz searched the woman's face, wishing she could be sure there was no deceit there. “How did you find me, if you're not my enemy?”

“Oh, I believe you know the answer to that question, if you think about it,” the other dragon replied.

Sighing, Liz leaned against the side of her own car. “Reddington,” she said. Despite her attempts to stay out from under even his watchful gaze, he had obviously been tracking her. It wasn't really a surprise, though it was infuriating. At least he hadn't found out about Tom yet, evidently.

“Yes,” the woman acknowledged. “Now, may I come in? Don't worry – I've already eaten, and I won't be offended if you eat while we talk.”

Her appetite had diminished in the wake of all this, but Liz picked up her bag of takeout boxes and nodded once. Assuming this woman really was here at Red's request, she could at least be trusted to do what she said. “All right. But there's not enough room for four people.”

“My guards will stay outside.”

They entered the room, and Liz cleared off her open suitcase from the bed, pulled the little table over, and sat down. She gestured to the single chair. “Please.”

“Thank you.” Her guest sat.

“You're one of Reddington's … associates?” Liz asked, as she opened the box of orange chicken. “He tells me he doesn't have friends, so...”

Laughing, the woman said, “Well, Raymond does have a flair for melodrama. I would call us allies, at least. My name is Leah, by the way.”

Liz ate a few bites of her dinner. “What did he tell you about me?”

“Not much,” Leah said. “Just that you're very young, and new to this side of yourself, and in need of some guidance.” There was no judgment in her tone. “He also mentioned that you had a run-in with Gordon Ambrose recently.”

Resisting the urge to touch the almost-healed wound at her neck, Liz nodded. “Okay. So, what is it that you both think I need to know?”

“How long has it been since your first transformation?” Leah asked. Her eyes were bright green, Liz noticed, and she wondered to herself what color Leah's dragon form would be.

“Four months,” Liz replied.

“And have you been having any trouble sleeping recently? Strange, unsettling dreams?”

Liz stared at her. She wondered when it would stop being the case that other people knew more about her life than she did. “Yes. For several days now.”

“Ah.” Leah leaned forward. “Then it's a good thing Raymond came to me now, rather than waiting any longer. We might both have had cause to be angry at him, if he had delayed.”

“Why?” Liz was still holding her plastic fork poised above the takeout box; she set it down. She had an idea she wasn't going to like the answer to this question.

“Because while it makes sense for it to be me who talks to you about your first season, rather than him,” explained Leah, “it seems you're already beginning it. And to have no idea what was happening to you would have been very disturbing and possibly dangerous.”

Liz looked down, aware that she was flushing. She did need to know more about this – she had known she needed to know more ever since Ambrose first mentioned it – but she felt embarrassingly like she had felt having 'the talk' with Sam all those years ago. She cleared her throat, tried to make sure she wasn't going to be broadcasting her thoughts, and said, “Okay. Uh, I'm listening.”

“Then I'll get started.” Leah folded her hands on her knee. “Females of our kind come into season approximately once a year, and it lasts about a week. During that time, if nothing is done to lessen the effects, we become rather, shall we say, single-minded about finding a decent mate – and it becomes correspondingly very difficult for members of the opposite sex to ignore us. Pheromones, I suppose.” The woman gave a wry smile. “If there are no suitable mates among the dragon population, we will select a human. From there, a normal human pregnancy will progress. But if two dragons fly together – which is rare these days – the result will be a clutch of eggs, rather than a single human baby. Again, let me stress that this is what happens if there is no outside intervention.”

Liz swallowed as she recalled again how Ambrose had threatened her. Even though she had escaped that result, the rest of what Leah was describing sounded highly distasteful, as well. “Are you saying we're totally at the mercy of this? Every year?” She hadn't wanted to think of herself as this much like an animal.

“No, Agent Keen, I'm not,” Leah said. She looked faintly irritated. “Pay attention, please. I said if nothing is done to control this, but of course we have developed our own means of what you could call birth control over the centuries. Do you really think we wouldn't have?”

Relief flooded her, and Liz rubbed a hand over her face. “Right. No, that makes sense,” she said. “So what do I need to do?”

“It's very simple, and not even unpleasant,” said Leah. She reached down and pulled a box of tea out of her purse. “Chamomile tea, oddly enough, when drunk in sufficient quantities throughout the week of your season, will mitigate the effects such that they are very manageable.”

Liz raised her eyebrows as she accepted the box from the other woman. “Wow. Okay. How much is 'sufficient'?”

“I find one cup with every meal for the first couple of days does the trick for me,” Leah replied. “As the week progresses, I cut down to two per day.”

Liz turned the box of tea over in her hands. It seemed almost too easy to be true. “Thank you,” she said after a moment. “I, um, I'm guessing I should start today?”

“As soon as this particular pattern of sleep disruption and vivid dreams starts is best,” Leah said with a nod. “Since you've already begun, though, I would suggest two cups tonight. Otherwise tomorrow might be awkward and uncomfortable for you and those around you.”

Pushing aside the table, Liz crossed the room to the electric kettle provided next to the mini-fridge, and started the water boiling. She did not plan on taking any chances. She'd buy another box of this tomorrow after work, just in case. Then she sat back down, and took another bite of her food. “Anything else I should know?” she asked, after she'd finished chewing.

“You'll probably still get a little more male attention than usual, even with the tea,” Leah told her. She gave Liz an appraising look. “But I'm sure you deal with it regularly, anyway, since you're very beautiful and you work in a male-dominated field.”

Blushing again, very slightly, Liz nodded. “As long as I don't start getting propositioned by my coworkers, or my boss – or start angling to get propositioned – I can handle some catcalls.” She couldn't imagine a state of mind in which she might come on to Harold Cooper, but apparently it was possible.

“Good.” Leah stood up. “Well, I think that covers everything you need to know to prepare you for this new feature of your life. I'll leave you to the rest of your dinner, Agent Keen.”

“Elizabeth,” Liz said, as she stood up and held out her hand. After a pause, Leah shook it, as Liz went on, “It's, uh, it's nice to have an … ally in all of this.”

Chuckling, Leah said, “For me, too. Oh, I nearly forgot: you should avoid sexual intercourse completely during this week, even though you'll be in control of yourself. Unless you want to end up with a child, that is.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” She hesitated, and then decided to go for it. After all, she had been continuing to have her period every month since her first transformation, so the question was relevant. “Does that mean that, during other weeks of the year, if I...”

“It's not impossible for a female dragon to conceive during other times of the year, but it is extremely rare,” Leah said. She shrugged. “Like I said: birth control, of a sort.”

“Huh.” Privately, Liz mused that this was no doubt another factor in the general decline of the dragon population on the planet. Even if it was a very dominant trait, which it seemed to be, if reproduction was so limited... Maybe it wasn't all that surprising for dragons in her current life state to be as rare as they evidently were. But this brought up a few more questions she thought would be useful to have answered, even if they were as embarrassing as the rest of this was. “Is there anything else I should know? I mean, for any time when I find, um, someone I want to start a relationship with.”

“What kinds of things are you thinking about?” Leah looked amused but kind.

“I don't know,” she muttered. Her face was hot again. She wished she didn't have to feel like such an idiot about all of this. “Traditions? Customs? Anything that I would find … different from before?”

“There are no prescribed rituals for dragons, if that's what you mean,” said Leah. “Our relationships are guided by our own feelings and our moral beliefs, like with the rest of society. As far as any differences that might be biological, well...” She thought for a moment. “I suppose you might find you're more possessive or territorial regarding your mate, especially during your season. But it's nothing you wouldn't be able to recognize and control.”

That didn't sound too alarming. Liz thought she could handle it, now that she knew what to expect.

“All right, well, I should get going,” Leah said. She gave Liz another smile, and headed for the door. “Take care of yourself, Elizabeth.”

“Thanks for, um, all your help.” Liz watched the older woman (there was no way of knowing just how much older she was, Liz realized) walk the short distance to the parking lot. She stopped at Liz's car first, slipping something under her windshield wiper, and then got into her own.

After Leah's car had left the premises, Liz hurried out to pick up the small slip of paper. It looked like a business card, but all it had on it was the name Leah Weston and a phone number. Still, Liz smiled as she went back to her room. Having a way to reach Leah might not be a bad thing at all.

The two cups of chamomile tea Liz drank before bed that night had a noticeable soothing effect right away, in that she slept much more solidly than she had the past few nights. The following morning, she took stock of herself upon getting up. She didn't feel any different than she had yesterday. Thinking about sex didn't make her want to rush out and find the first 'suitable' guy she could locate. That was probably a good sign.

At work, Liz felt a few more lingering gazes from guards and male coworkers than usual. No one said anything inappropriate, at least. Aram gave her a clumsy but heartfelt compliment to the effect that she looked like she was feeling better than she had been yesterday. When his eyes widened and he tried to backpedal, Liz smiled, caught Samar's eye, and shook her head. “It's all right, Aram,” she said. “I was feeling a little off yesterday, and I am feeling better today.”

“Oh,” he said, and returned the smile. “Well, in that case, good.”

She didn't see or hear from Red for the next five days – which, as it turned out, was the exact length of time the rest of her season lasted. (She could tell it was over by how she felt when she woke up that fifth day. It was difficult to put into words, but there was something that had been there for the past week, even with the chamomile tea, that was gone now. It was a relief.) Liz was not so naïve to think that the length of Red's absence had been a coincidence. But as far as trying to think of the reasons why he would absent himself... Liz wasn't sure she wanted the answer to that question.

Red didn't bring up the issue at all, even obliquely, during the phone conversation where he told her he would be bringing in another Blacklist case that day. All he offered by way of explanation, once they were all at the Post Office, was that he had been following up a possible lead to Berlin. Of course he wouldn't give any details, either.

But when she was alone with him in his car on the way to meet with a contact, before she could figure out a way to bring up the topic, Red met her gaze and said, “You met with Leah, then.”

“Yes.” Apparently just in time, she thought, but he didn't need to know that detail. She supposed she could thank him for arranging this, but as close as she could get was to add, “She was very helpful.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” He paused for just a moment. “By the way, common courtesy among our kind is for any males who are allies or otherwise seeking to remain on good terms with females in our lives to withdraw during the female's season. To do otherwise is regarded as not only insulting, but crass.”

That seemed to be all he was going to say on the subject. Liz nodded, and then studied a loose thread on the seam near her knee. Once again she might be expected to thank him. Instead she felt herself fighting back a rush of irritation, even anger. She was tired of the fact that she had to depend on him for almost everything she knew about “their kind”, in addition to the infuriating way he parceled out tiny bits of what he knew about her past. She could understand part of why he did this, but understanding didn't make it much easier for her to handle.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, Liz cleared her throat and asked, “Are there any other aspects of my life now that I should know about, that I can look forward to being unpleasantly surprised by?” She didn't add, Not to mention the secrets from my past that you refuse to tell me?

Red looked faintly miffed. “Lizzie,” he said with a frown, “are you really going to tell me you've found every single thing about your draconic nature to be so terrible?”

“Considering the first change, the kidnappings, having to hypnotize Ressler into believing a lie, and then last week? And considering I couldn't possibly have known what to expect for any of this?” Liz smiled bitterly and looked away again. “Anyway, you didn't answer my question.”

With a sigh, Red leaned back to look at her as he said, “As much as it understandably will gall you to hear it, Lizzie, you're still very young, in terms of your true nature. There's no way anyone can fully, adequately forewarn--”

“You don't have to remind me that I'm new to this, Red,” she cut in sharply. “I'm aware there will be plenty of stuff that I'll just learn from-- from life experience. I'm talking about the kinds of things I just mentioned. Abilities, threats, weaknesses, things like those.”

“Weaknesses?” Red blinked. “Beyond what I've already alluded to and what you've already learned from personal experience – that we don't do well in the cold, especially when we're in dragon form – I don't think you're missing anything that will surprise you. You may notice some animals take an instant dislike to you, I suppose.”

Liz thought of Hudson, who had vanished during one of her moves to a different motel. He hadn't seemed to mistrust her all of a sudden, but it was good to know that kind of reaction was possible, she guessed. “Anything else?”

He was quiet for another short while. “You'll probably find yourself in the position of shedding your skin, at regular intervals in the future when you're transformed,” he said. “Very normal.” His tone held only a hint of irony at that last statement.

She couldn't quite hold back a huff of laughter. “Yeah. Normal,” she said. All part of being a giant, mythical reptile.

“As far as threats, you're aware of what I'm aware of. I have a few other longstanding differences of opinion with others of our kind, but after the incident with Gordon Ambrose, I'm not going to let anything of that nature creep up on either of us again.” Now his voice was utterly serious, and his eyes glinted with resolve and menace. As ever, Liz wasn't sure he would tell her every possible danger. But she had no cause to doubt his sincerity, or capability.

“And finally,” Red continued, glancing toward Dembe in the driver's seat, as they turned down a side street, “as far as ability, you've dealt with and adapted to these upheavals in your life so far impressively, Lizzie. It will only get easier in time.”

Feeling her cheeks warm, Liz shook her head. “That's not what I--” she started to say, but then the car pulled up at the curb of their destination, and it was time to shift gears back into FBI mode.

~  
(after “The Decembrist”)

Liz had hoped for a little bit more downtime.

It had been just over a week since Tom's disappearance, and therefore just over a week since Red discovered where she had been hiding him. Things had been relatively quiet since then. Of course there had been enough damage control that “relatively” was the operative word, but Red seemed to want a break as much as she did. Or at least, he chose not to bring any cases to the FBI's attention. Liz had even found an apartment in the area, now that she didn't have to worry about Berlin and his men.

But when Red came into the Post Office that day, Liz was startled by the anxiety she could sense from him before he even explained the case. There was no outward sign, but it was there under his usual calm control.

“The man we're looking for is called the Collector,” Reddington began, as the rest of the team gathered around him. “As is frequently the case, no one knows his actual name, or anything much about him, except that he's extremely wealthy and that he uses that wealth to support his very unusual hobby.”

“Which would be?” prompted Agent Navabi.

Red nodded to Aram, who put up several pictures on the screen. “He's called the Collector because he collects people – ones that he thinks are rare enough, have interesting enough traits, to join his collection. He doesn't kill them, or at least no bodies have ever been located. But as you'll see, some of these people have been missing for over a decade. So that would imply he keeps his collection as prisoners, apparently purely for his own enjoyment and convenience.”

There were murmurs of disgust from the agents assembled in the room. Liz bit her lip, sure she was beginning to understand Red's worry. She joined Ressler and Cooper in examining the pictures Red had gathered more closely.

“Okay, some of these people I guess I get being seen as 'collectible', if you're a sick bastard,” Ressler said, pointing to one article about a missing boy from Indiana whose picture showed him to be about as albino as was possible. He was sixteen when he went missing, Liz read. She felt her stomach twist. “But what about this woman? Or this guy here? They don't look abnormal in any way, and nothing in these articles suggests rare or unique traits.”

Red met Liz's eyes for just a second, and what she saw there confirmed her suspicions. But all he said was, “That is an excellent question, Agent Ressler. I suppose finding out what the Collector sees in these people could be a step toward finding the man himself, wouldn't you think?”

Ressler nodded and turned his gaze back to the pictures. Cooper, meanwhile, asked, “And what connections does this Collector have with you? How did you find out about him?”

“I have associates who have become concerned about associates of theirs,” Reddington replied. “It seems some of the more striking or noteworthy of them have disappeared.”

“Any examples to help us narrow down this guy's criteria?”

Red listed a few cases that sounded plausible enough: a set of conjoined twins, and a few others with rare disorders that made them stand out physically. But it wasn't all people who might once have been found in the freak show of a circus. One of them was a man who had long insisted he had psychic abilities, and whose record of providing useful tips to the police in his area was surprisingly high.

“So this collector values so-called supernatural abilities as well,” Samar remarked, skepticism evident in her voice.

“That would seem to be the case,” agreed Red. “And whether or not we believe in what he evidently believes in, it's very possible this will help us find him.”

It took Liz a few seconds to notice that Ressler had cast several covert glances at her, after this latest factor was introduced into the discussion. Her heart sank. She didn't think Red had noticed, but then again, this was Red. If he connected the dots...

Liz looked for a moment to slip away to talk to Ressler (she would reinforce her instructions to him, if she had to), but Red summoned her away before such a moment could materialize. “Lizzie,” he called, “if you'll come with me, I have a few more details to share with you.”

“Where are we going?” Liz asked in return, but followed him out nonetheless.

“Nowhere in particular,” he replied as they headed for the exit. “I just wanted us to enjoy a light brunch while I tell you a few additional things you ought to know about this Collector.”

He didn't speak again until they were out of the building and in the car. Then he looked at her. “I'm sure you've guessed there's more to the story than I've told the FBI.”

She nodded. “Something to do with dragons.”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Almost everyone in those missing person reports is just a smokescreen – just part of the real collection. What this man really wants is us – as many of us as he can get.”

Liz swallowed and clenched her hands together in her lap. “Do I want to know why? And how does he even know about – us, if he isn't one of us?”

“He knows about us because one of his grandparents was a dragon, or so it would seem,” Red told her. At her confused expression, he explained, “If a mixed-blood like us has a child with a full-blood human, draconic traits are dominant enough to be inherited. But that child will not be able to pass on their draconic heritage in full to the next generation, unless his or her partner also has at least one dragon parent. So the Collector presumably learned about the existence of dragons from his family, perhaps inherited the increased mental strength you encountered in Tom, but nothing more.”

She took a few seconds to consider this. She wondered how many children of mixed-bloods there were who knew about their parents' draconic natures. “And why does he want to collect us? What does he want with a bunch of dragons?”

Red was silent at first. The tension in him could not have been more blindingly obvious. “I don't know all of the details. What I do know is that one of the associates I mentioned in the briefing managed to track down a man who worked for the Collector – or I should say, delivered supplies to one of his warehouses. He didn't know much, but he did see inside once.” He took a breath and went on, “There were rows of cages, which he described as huge, and several people in white coats moving around. The cages in his line of sight were empty.”

“Oh my God.” Liz stared at him. This was sounding worse and worse. “Where was that warehouse? We need to--”

“The man didn't divulge that information, even under great duress,” Red cut in. “It's my associate's judgment that this was motivated by fear – fear of his boss. He died rather than divulge it, in fact.”

At that point, they arrived at their destination. Liz saw with faint surprise that it was, actually, a restaurant. “Brunch? Really?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Smiling, he said, “Yes, really. Never let a worrisome topic of discussion spoil a good meal, Lizzie.”

But despite his confident statement, neither of them ate much during the rest of their conversation. It was (for Liz, at least) too disturbing to think about eating while they discussed what kinds of things the Collector could be doing to those dragons he had in captivity. It was also disturbing to think about how he could have managed to capture them in the first place.

When the meal was winding down, Red looked across the table at her. “Lizzie,” he said, after a long pause, “you've made it clear recently that you don't appreciate it when I hire extra protection for you. But under these circumstances...”

She tried not to let too much shock show. “Are you actually asking my permission this time?”

“Well, more like clearing the air ahead of time,” was his response.

“Uh huh.” Liz pushed her hair behind her ear. She supposed it was progress for him to even inform her of his plans before he put them into action. “Do I have your word that they'll be discreet, and that you'll tell them they're done once we catch the Collector?”

“I promise.”

“And are you hiring more security for yourself, too?” She met his gaze squarely and said, “Because you're just as much at risk as I am.” The thought of him ending up in a cage having God knows what done to him was something she didn't want to imagine.

Red smiled as he told her, “Dembe has already made it clear that I need to improve my own security as well as yours, but thank you for asking, Lizzie.”

As they were on their way back to the Post Office, Liz asked what she might tell the FBI from what they had just discussed. “I don't think they'll believe I sat there while you didn't give me anything else useful to go on during that whole time.”

“Probably not,” he agreed placidly. “They're more aware of your impatience than that by now.”

“Red...” Considering his comment, she thought her voice right then was admirably free of said impatience.

“Tell them I told you the Collector has another agenda that he disguises by means of his little collection of sideshow oddities,” Red said. “The agenda has something to do with unauthorized medical experimentation. Telling them this will have the advantages of being true, and perhaps even helping them help us track him down.”

Liz nodded. They sat in silence while Dembe drove, until they were almost back at the Post Office. Then she cleared her throat and asked the question that had been bothering her the most. “If the Collector can know about dragons despite not being one – and I mean, I assume someone down the line tried to hypnotize him into forgetting about us, but it didn't work – then is it possible that the FBI could find out what those missing people do have in common? Isn't it risky for us to group them together, point out that they have something in common?”

“It is risky,” Red acknowledged with a sigh. “Honestly, despite frequent comments I've made about the efficiency and competence of law enforcement agencies, I almost didn't bring this case to the team's attention for that very reason. But I think the risk is small when compared to what we face – what our kind faces – if we can't stop this man. Whatever his exact plans are for his captives, they have the potential to threaten our existence much more than anything your team could discover.”

That wasn't exactly reassuring, but Liz had to agree with his reasoning. She also couldn't help recalling his interest in the welfare of endangered animals. It turned out that he and she were both part of an endangered species; that might well be the main reason for his passion on the subject.

Red dropped her off at work. As she was entering the building, Liz thought she caught a glimpse of a man in nondescript clothing vanishing behind a parked car. She shivered. Hopefully, if she wasn't just getting paranoid again, that had been one of Red's new guards. She didn't want to have to start worrying about the Collector tracking her down, so soon after Berlin was no longer a threat.

Ressler was easy enough to corner once she was back inside, and after she had passed along the agreed-upon update. Once she was sure no one else was in hearing range, she decided to start with, “Was there something you wanted to ask me about earlier, Ressler?”

He opened his mouth to reply, then shook his head. “Uh, no. Not really,” he said quietly.

“Good,” she replied, “because I'd hate to have to remind you of what I said to you a couple of weeks ago. It hasn't changed.”

There was a hint of confusion in Ressler's expression, like he thought there was more going on here than was obvious, but he didn't pursue it. Instead, he just said, “As long as you – and Reddington, I guess – stay safe. This Collector guy sounds even more like some kind of comic book villain than some of our previous Blacklisters.”

She snorted. “Yeah, he does, doesn't he?”

The rest of the day's investigation turned up nothing much in the way of useful clues. All Aram was able to determine was that most of the missing people believed to be part of their Blacklister's collection were from the Midwest or Northeast. This hadn't taken him long, in fact. Beyond that, they read over the police files from all of the victims. There wasn't much to go on.

“So we don't really have any witnesses to these disappearances, except for an old lady who says she saw a black van drive past the albino kid's house the day he vanished,” Ressler said with a sigh, throwing the file down on his desk. “And we still aren't finding any connections between the victims who don't have an obvious collectible attribute, either.”

Liz sighed as she set down the file she had been rereading. Once again, she was feeling traitorous because of what she had to hide from Ressler and the others. “Can I take a look at the rest of the 'mystery' members of the collection?”

“Go for it,” he said, passing her the relevant folders.

Ten minutes later, Liz wasn't sure she would have much that was helpful to share with the team even if she did reveal these four victims' probable commonality. They all lived in different states, were different ages, and didn't seem to have interacted with each other ever. Of course, assuming they were all dragons, any interactions would have been discreet. They might not show up in any kind of routine police investigation.

It was hard to know how long their investigation would have taken if there hadn't been another reported suspicious disappearance closer to home, the very next day. A local schoolteacher who, they learned, might possibly have been targeted because of his noteworthy giftedness at learning languages, had vanished on his way home from work the previous day. Mr. Richard Nelson, age 34, was not married and had no kids. His girlfriend Jackie, however, had reported him missing when he failed to arrive for their after-work date and she wasn't able to reach him.

After having briefed the team about this incident, Cooper looked around the room. “I'll be honest: we have no concrete evidence proving that Mr. Nelson was targeted by the Collector,” he admitted. “All we know for sure is that he's an unusually talented man, and he's missing. Miss Brown, his girlfriend, did say she saw a black van in Nelson's neighborhood in the past week, but that's a thin connection at best. However, since we don't have any stronger leads, we're going to follow it up until we find out what happened to Nelson.”

Ressler and Liz were assigned to go talk to Jackie Brown, while Samar went to interview his colleagues. The teacher's girlfriend was articulate, eager to help, and clearly disappointed that she didn't have more to offer in the way of clues. “Do you really think that-- that Richard's disappearance could be linked to a bunch of other people's disappearances?” she asked, as the two FBI agents were wrapping up their questions.

Liz and Ressler traded glances. “We don't have enough evidence to say either way yet, ma'am,” Ressler replied. “But we'll update you as soon as we know anything.”

Just then, there were screams and shouts of dismay from outside. Ressler and Liz stood up, just in time to hear two gunshots, with seconds between them. Jackie cried out. “Miss Brown, stay inside and stay away from the windows,” Ressler commanded, as he pulled his weapon from his holster.

“And call 911!” added Liz, as she and Ressler ran out of the apartment.

On the street, people were fleeing from something that was hidden at the front of a parked truck, not visible from their viewpoint. One of them, a young man in a business suit, stopped for just a second when he saw the two agents heading toward him, guns at the ready. “A guy got shot back there!” he yelled. “The shooter ran off, but I didn't see where he went!”

“Thanks,” Ressler called as they passed by. “Get out of the area. We'll take it from here!”

They rounded the side of the truck, and froze at the sight of a dark-suited man with his back against the front grill of the vehicle. Blood was spilling out of a wound on his chest, though he was pressing against it futilely with one hand. His fingers were covered in the bright red liquid. The other hand was on the ground, holding loosely onto a military-issue handgun. He didn't pick it up, though he was conscious enough to see them.

“Sir, what happened?” Liz asked. She crouched down next to him as Ressler scanned the area for any evidence of the shooter.

The man's eyes focused on her face. He tried to speak, grimaced, and tried again. “Agent Keen...”

Liz drew back slightly. “Who are you? How do you know who I am?” Ressler turned around at this.

“I was … about to take my shift,” he gasped out between obviously painful breaths. “Just got out … of the car. Guy came up … like he was headed for … where you were. I reached for my gun … but he got me first.” He coughed, and blood trickled out of his mouth. “Don't know … where the other guard was. Heard another shot.”

The other guard. Liz felt as if she had been plunged into ice water. This was one of the bodyguards Reddington had hired to watch her. And if Red had hired him, he would have to be one of the best. And he had been shot.

“Agent Keen,” the guard said, suddenly seizing her arm with the hand that had been on his weapon, “you … you have to get out of here. They … know where you are. They--”

But he was cut off by the bullet that whistled past Liz's head and struck his throat. With a choked gurgle, the man slid to the ground as Ressler swore and pushed Liz down right next to him. They're not going to shoot me, Liz wanted to tell him, but instead she fumbled to regain her grip on her own weapon, which she had nearly dropped when Ressler pushed her down.

A moment later, another shot was fired from wherever the sniper was looking down at them. Ressler yelled and put one hand to his shoulder. Liz pushed herself up to look at him, terrified at what she might see – but it had merely been a graze, it seemed. Based on the precision of the shot that had killed the guard, the sniper had meant it to be a graze. The expression on Ressler's face told her he had come to the same conclusion.

“Drop your weapons and put your hands up, both of you,” came a man's voice through a loudspeaker right after this. “Our sniper has you in his sights, as we just proved.”

Liz traded a look with her partner. Slowly, they put their weapons on the ground and raised their hands as they kneeled in front of the dead man.

“Good. Now stay where you are. Don't move.”

Sirens were now audible in the distance, getting closer. Liz almost couldn't hear them or the sound of men approaching them over the pounding of her own heart. She wasn't sure a sniper's bullet could kill her if she transformed right now, but she wasn't planning to desert Ressler. Besides, dragon scales weren't impenetrable, even if the sniper happened to miss anything vital. She knew that much.

Six men in black, each one holding an automatic weapon, arrived then and surrounded the two agents. One of them, who wore black sunglasses, nodded to another of them. This man stepped forward and knocked Ressler in the head with the butt of his gun. Ressler collapsed soundlessly. Liz started to protest, but was halted when two of the others pulled her roughly to her feet. “Come on.”

They took her further to the end of the street, as the sirens continued to get louder. Once she had been shoved into their van, the door was slammed shut and the guy in the sunglasses pulled out his phone. “We have her,” he said, as soon as whoever he had called picked up. The van started to move.

Liz, who was still being held at gunpoint by three of the men, tried to breathe. If these were the Collector's men, as she assumed they were... _Red?_ she called out, reaching for him mentally. _Red, can you hear me?_

There was no response. She could feel him, but he wasn't close. And he wasn't answering. Her fear increased. This could not be a good sign.

“All right. We'll be there in ten,” the leader of the group said, and then hung up his phone. He removed his sunglasses and turned to one of the men next to Liz. “Drug her.”

“What? No!” Liz pulled away, ignoring the guns pointed at her. They weren't going to kill her. She knew that. Her sudden resistance startled them, and she almost made it between the rows of seats to the door before the driver of the van slammed on the brakes. The abrupt stop made her fall forward, and as she was pulled up off the floor she felt a needle enter the base of her neck. Immediately, cold heaviness spread outward from the injection site and everything went black.

~


	5. Chapter 5

~  
Liz felt terrible when she began to wake up. Her head was pounding, she was cold, and whatever she was lying on was not comfortable. Her mouth was dry and tasted metallic. Plus, something very bad had happened the last time she was awake. But her head hurt too much for her to remember what that was.

Groaning, she turned over – and her eyes snapped open when her outstretched hand touched cold metal. It took another second for her vision to focus. Then she saw her fingers had come in contact with a thick metal bar. One of the bars that formed the cage inside which she was now lying.

“Hello, Lizzie,” a familiar voice said, from behind her. It was quiet, but in the large open space around her, it carried easily. “I'm afraid the headache will last for a while yet.”

Liz turned over again quickly, although the motion made her dizzy. On the other side of her cage – a significant distance away, since her cage had to be large enough for her true form – was Red. He was seated in the closest corner of his own cage. He smiled at her, but it didn't reach his eyes.

“No,” Liz whispered, her heart sinking. That explained why he hadn't answered when she had tried to contact him.

Red nodded and sighed. “Yes, I'm sorry to say the Collector got to me just a short while before he got to you, evidently. I estimate I've been awake for slightly under an hour.” Then he gestured around them and added, “I wasn't the first to get here, and it looks like you won't be the last.”

Liz sat up carefully, blinking when the world blurred for a few seconds and her headache increased as well. But the pain receded, and she looked where he had indicated.

There were three other gigantic cages across from them, looming high toward the ceiling of the warehouse they were in. One of them, across from Red, was occupied by an unfamiliar man whose back was turned away from them, and whose arms were crossed. The one directly across from Liz was also occupied, by another man she only recognized from one of the photos Red had provided at the Post Office. She didn't recall his name. He was at the opposite end of his cage from them. Their human-sized figures looked almost ridiculously small in comparison to their cages. 

The cage to her right side was empty, as was the one across from that one. All of those who had been captured, Liz noted, including herself, were wearing pale blue hospital-style scrubs. She shivered and pulled her knees to her chest. That was when she saw the bandaid on the crook of her left arm.

“They drew blood,” she said, shivering again.

Red nodded again, extending his left arm to show her a similar bandage. “I imagine they did a full medical exam and ran a number of tests while we were unconscious,” he said matter-of-factly. “There would be no sense in wasting that opportunity.”

Liz wrapped her arms around her knees. He was most likely right, and now she got to imagine scientists in white coats doing whatever they wanted with her while she had no way of resisting. She decided to change the subject, at least sort of. “They knew where I was,” she told him. “They took out one of your guards while he was just arriving for his shift, and I didn't see the other one but we heard another shot. They knocked Ressler out and left him there, as far as I know. They were very well-organized and supplied. It all happened fast.”

“As near as I can figure it, they must have shot me with a tranquilizer dart,” Red said in return. “It had to have been from a distance. I lost consciousness even before I saw what happened to Dembe.”

She didn't like to think how these men would have reacted to Dembe's reaction to Red being taken out like that. But they hadn't killed Ressler, so at least they could hope they hadn't killed Dembe either.

“I clearly underestimated this threat,” Red stated a moment later. She didn't often see him regretful, but he was now. He frowned and looked at the cage surrounding him. “I'm sorry, Lizzie. I should have given the FBI what information I had, and then gotten us both the hell out of the Collector's reach.”

“We didn't have enough information to make that kind of decision,” Liz replied. She tried to smile. “Besides, at least Cooper will have a lot of added motivation to track down the Collector now.”

He returned the smile and agreed. “Let's hope that between the FBI and my resources, our friends have enough to go on to find us.”

Before we have to be lab rats for too long, Liz thought, but didn't say.

The large, open room was silent for a while after this. Liz didn't enjoy the suspense of wondering what would happen next, and how much longer they would be forced to wait in this unheated warehouse before the next step. She almost would have said she'd rather the Collector get things started, but that probably wasn't true. One of the men across from Red and her was pacing the width of his cage now, looking at both of them every few minutes. The other one was still facing away from them, still seated as he had been when Liz woke up.

Liz decided she might as well pass the time by learning something about the others. But first, she stood up slowly, gripping onto the nearest bar of the cage as support, and waited for the dizziness and headache to fade. She could tell Red was watching her, even before she looked at him. He said nothing, just watched in mild concern as she made her careful way to the side of her cage closest to his. There was about a yard between the two enclosures, she noted when she sat down again.

“Do you know either of them?” she asked very quietly, without looking toward the two men.

_No_ , he replied, and Liz almost laughed ruefully at herself for forgetting that they could communicate much more quietly than in a whisper. _The one getting all the exercise – other than having seen that photo I was given by an associate, I must have seen him in person somewhere. But it wasn't recently, and we didn't interact directly._

_Maybe he was at an event you attended?_ Liz suggested. She wondered if Red could really be sure he didn't know the man seated on the floor, since he hadn't shown his face the whole time she was conscious. Perhaps he'd turned around when Red first came to.

Red leaned back against the bars of his cage, in the corner closest to her. _Maybe._

Red, she knew, had made his living from his excellent memory for faces and names. If he did know this dragon more than in passing, it would come to him soon enough.

The man in question stopped pacing then, and walked to the front of his cage. “You know,” he said, narrowing his sharp brown eyes at Liz and Red, “it's not very polite to talk about people behind their backs.”

“Our apologies,” Red said, standing to cross the length of his own enclosure. “I was just telling my young friend Elizabeth here that I think I've seen you somewhere before. I'm--”

“Raymond Reddington, I know,” the man interrupted. “Yes, we were at the same party in Mumbai last year. I didn't actually speak with you, but I saw you talking to our host and hostess before all the excitement started.”

Liz raised an eyebrow as Red gave a polite smile and nod. “Yes, I recall now. You were with Anna Marie's entourage, weren't you?”

The man seemed to consider for a while before he answered. “I'm part of the family business, yeah,” he said at last. “David Kent is my name.”

“Pleased to meet you, David,” said Red, “though of course I'm sure we'd all rather it was under different circumstances.”

David muttered an agreement, then turned to Liz. “Did I hear you and Reddington talking about the FBI earlier? Are you an agent?”

Liz confirmed this and introduced herself. David frowned at her and nodded, not angry but thoughtful. He appeared to be a little younger than Director Cooper, but of course Liz had no idea if that was an accurate comparison or not. “My aunt – that's Anna Marie Stowell – had only just started to hear rumors about this guy, this Collector you two were talking about,” he said, scratching at a bruise above his right eye and wincing. “What do you know about him?”

Liz glanced at Red, who nodded slightly. There was very little risk in sharing information at this point; by default they were all on the same side here, even if they wouldn't have been had they met outside this warehouse. Something about David's continued sharp looks at Red suggested he wouldn't have been eager to work with him if he'd had a choice. She summarized everything they knew about the Collector and his operation. “It's not much, and I'm not sure how it'll help us, but...” she finished.

David tapped a finger against his chin. “Well, we can be pretty sure we're not the only ones of us in his collection, at any rate,” he said, “since I heard the man who led the team that captured me say something about 'the second building' before he knocked me out.”

“That would make sense, since six of us isn't much of a collection,” Red observed. “Assuming he plans to fill all of the cages in here, of course.”

“He does,” said a voice, from the cage to David's right. The man who had been facing away from them, seated on the floor this whole time, stood up with obvious pain, and turned around. His hair was nearly white, and his cloudy blue eyes were bleak. “And he'll get two more of us soon, no doubt. That's when he'll put his plan into action.” While he spoke, he had staggered over to the nearest side of his cage to lean against the bars. Even with their support, he was swaying on his feet.

“Do you know this Collector guy, then?” David asked, clearly torn between annoyance that the old man had waited until now to speak up and concern that he might fall over.

The man nodded, but before he had gathered his breath to speak again, Red swore under his breath and stepped as close as he could to the front of his cage. “Good Lord. Albert, is that you?”

“Hello, Raymond,” the man said, then cleared his throat. “I hope you all won't mind if I sit down again. My legs aren't up to much exertion these days.”

“Albert, you're old, but you're not that old,” Red said, with what looked like real alarm. “What the hell happened to you?”

Albert sat down in the same slow, painful way he had gotten to his feet. Then he shook his head. “My grandson, that's what. Or the Collector, as you call him.”

Liz felt a chill that had nothing to do with the inadequacy of her clothes against the lack of heating. “He-- hurts you?” The man in front of her was hardly recognizable from the photo she had seen on the wall in the Post Office.

With a snort, Albert fixed his gaze on her. “Yes, child, he's been torturing me for half a decade now, on and off. Wants to know everything I can tell him about dragons, and everyone I know who is one.”

“So does that mean the rest of us have you to thank for our current situation?” demanded David.

He sighed. When he rubbed his hands across his face, Liz saw to her further horror that Albert was missing a few of his fingertips. “It's not as if I wanted to betray anyone,” was what he finally said. “I just … couldn't seem to stay silent after a certain point.”

David made a sound of disgust and turned away. Red, on the other hand, was continuing to regard Albert with a mixture of pity and dismay. He shook his head slightly. “And now your grandson is going to treat you as just one of his collection?”

“That's what it looks like,” said Albert. “Frank has been obsessed with learning as much as he can about dragons ever since he first heard about his heritage. And when it really sank in, how his mother and his grandparents could transform and all the other parts of it that he didn't have, I think he lost it. Jealous rage that never went away. I'm quite sure, whatever the cause, that he's insane.”

“So … he's gathering all of us for what – to kill us off?” Liz asked. This sounded possibly even worse than she had imagined. “Torture us to death?”

“No,” Albert replied without hesitation. “I mean, he might well kill me off, if I'm too weak now for what he has planned, but I believe he sees himself as some kind of protector of dragonkind. I don't know exactly what that means for us, though, young lady. All I know is, it's a real pity he has just enough dragon blood in him to keep his mind safe from any outside persuasion.”

Liz had to agree. Frank sounded like the worst kind of monster. The ones who saw themselves as having a noble goal to work for tended to be much worse than those who worked only for their own ends.

“If he were really one of our kind, he'd care about his own flesh and blood at least,” David put in, still clearly furious at Albert. “Or did his family fail to teach him about that, too?”

“Perhaps we did,” the old dragon acknowledged. “It's hard to say where his madness came from.”

“The important thing now,” said Red, “is for us to observe, and consider, and work together to find a way out of here, if there is one. Accusations and blame are much less useful.”

David scoffed. “Yeah. You can let me know when the miracle solution occurs to any of you, and I'll be happy to help.”

Liz watched as David sat down on the opposite edge of his cage, as far from Albert as possible. Red was still standing right at the bars, perhaps engaged in silent conversation with the old, battered dragon. She took a deep breath and sat down partway toward the back of her cage. She didn't want to be as pessimistic as David, but she certainly didn't see a way out of this situation right now. Unless Ressler and the others managed to track them down, of course.

It was barely ten minutes after this conversation that the large metal door at one end of the warehouse was pulled open. Liz and the others, except Albert, all stood to face it.

First, four men in white lab coats came in, wheeling a gurney with an unconscious woman on it. For a second, Liz thought the sleeping woman in scrubs was Leah, and was relieved to see that it wasn't. David, on the other hand, cried out and hurried to the front of his cage. He watched in horror as the doctors unlocked the empty cage next to his and set the woman's body on the floor. At least they were gentle, Liz thought.

After the door was locked behind her, the white-coated men left without giving any of their other 'patients' more than a passing glance. But not long after this, a young man came in flanked by a man and a woman each in lab coats. None of these people, Liz could tell, were dragons, although her attention was immediately drawn by the young man in his expensive-looking tailored blouse and slacks. She clenched her fists. There was a slight family resemblance around the eyes, but even without that, she would have guessed easily that this was Frank, a.k.a. the Collector.

The woman was in mid-conversation with Frank when the trio entered the warehouse. “--Should have the remaining specimen by the end of the day, sir.”

Frank, whose gaze skimmed past his grandfather and right on to the others in their cages, nodded. “Good, I'm glad to hear it, Rochelle,” he said. By now they were nearly in the middle of all of the cages. “I don't want to have to delay the tests any further than that.”

“We're ready to move ahead as soon as we have all six ready,” the male doctor chimed in eagerly. He looked faintly familiar to Liz, but she was too distracted by her fear and anger to think about that much at the moment. “And we've already reached the target amount you wanted produced of the paralytic-transformative serum, as well, sir.”

Liz shot a look at Red. He clearly knew what the man was referring to, as well, and the tension in his posture increased. The Collector had access to Gordon Ambrose's research. This was bad news on top of bad news.

“Good,” Frank repeated, giving the man a small smile. Then he returned his focus to the dragons caged around him. When his gaze got to Liz, she fought the urge to react outwardly. He had a similar coldness to his eyes as Ambrose had, except instead of regarding her as someone he could use, Frank didn't even see her as a person at all. She was a possession, albeit a valuable one. Or at least, that was how his scrutiny made her feel. “Well, now,” he said, taking a step closer. “This one certainly seems like she could be the jewel of the collection. How lucky that we were able to find her.”

“My name is Elizabeth Keen,” Liz said, aware that her voice was shaking. But it was audible – strong, even. “I'm not an item in your collection.”

The Collector ignored this entirely, turning to Rochelle. “Our sixth candidate is another male, correct?”

Rochelle looked down at the notepad in her hands. “Yes, sir, unfortunately,” she reported. “Our data definitely support the statement that specimens similar to this female here are uncommon in the population, not to say downright rare. Females in general would seem to make up less than fifty percent of the remaining population.”

Frank nodded and finally stopped staring at Liz. Red, of course, managed to appear utterly unruffled by all of this, even when Frank scrutinized him closely. Red merely returned the favor, head tilted, and then asked, “Are you going to be sharing the results of all your tests and whatnot with your experimental subjects? I ask because some of us may be interested, and it only seems fair that we get some benefit from our involuntary participation.”

The young man's eyebrows rose. He didn't speak for a few seconds. “All dragons will benefit from everything those in my custody undergo,” he said finally, glancing around at the rest of them. Liz noticed (and she was sure Red did as well) that he still hadn't spoken to any of his captives directly. However beneficial he saw himself toward dragons, he still treated them as barely sentient. “Whether or not they recognize the help I'm going to provide is another question.”

With that, Frank and his two doctors headed for the exit. Liz heard him say to the male doctor, “Be sure they're fed no later than eight – by which time, ideally, the sixth will have arrived. And then adjust the climate controls as we discussed.”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, and then they were outside and the door was pulled down behind them.

There was silence among the warehouse's occupants for a couple of seconds. Then David blew out a breath and struck one of the bars of his cage. It rang dully. “Dear God. Your grandson's a psychopath and a lunatic, old man.”

Albert, to whom this was addressed, just nodded. “I'm afraid so.”

“Brave of you, to try to make him see you – us – as human,” David continued, nodding to Liz. He grimaced. “So to speak, anyway. Too bad it didn't work.”

Liz was trembling, she realized. She closed her eyes, and took several deep breaths. Brave was the last thing she felt right now.

“Yes, she was magnificent, wasn't she?” came Red's voice from behind her. “And Frank's lack of response in no way changes the fact that we must not be passive victims. It's highly unlikely we'll change his mind, I admit – but we might change the minds of the humans working for him. Especially if they're pureblood humans.”

That was a good point, and the first really encouraging thought Liz had had since her capture. Of course: their human guards or doctors might be 'persuaded' to help. She opened her eyes.

“I don't disagree with you, Raymond,” Albert said, “but unfortunately I know from experience that Frank does his best to collect workers who have draconic ancestry. That doesn't mean all of them are as resistant to mental tampering as he is, but it will make it harder to influence them.”

“What was that business the doctor was saying about a serum?” David asked then. From the cage on the other side of him, his aunt groaned, and he turned toward her quickly. But she didn't move or make any further sounds, so he stayed where he was.

Before Red could reply, Liz had a flash of realization. “Oh my God. That doctor – I knew I'd seen him before.” She looked at Red. “He was in Gordon Ambrose's laboratory before Ambrose told all of the doctors or scientists or whatever to get out.”

Red's eyes hardened, and he shook his head. “I had thought my people had destroyed all the equipment and anything else useful in his lab,” he said, “but they must not have been as thorough as I wished. Or else Ambrose kept a backup somewhere I didn't know about.”

Liz tried to breathe normally. If Frank's men had access to the serum that forced a dragon to transform while paralyzing him or her, that meant it was highly likely that they had access to the other serum. And she didn't have any trouble at all imagining how a serum like that could be taken by someone like Frank as a way to “help” dragons.

_Lizzie? What's wrong?_

Apparently she hadn't done a good job maintaining her poker face. But before Red pressed any further, David repeated his question about the serum. Red explained its effects, and David's eyes widened. “Well, damn,” he said softly. “These cages are starting to make a little more sense.”

At that moment, the woman in the cage next to David's groaned again, and he hurried over to be as close to her as possible. Since Albert seemed to have sunk back into silent resignation, that left Red with no other target for his attention. He looked at Liz again. _What's wrong, Lizzie? You aren't surprised by the idea that Frank would use this drug on us._

Liz shook her head slowly and bit her lip. As much as she very much didn't relish the idea of having a team of scientists poke and prod her while she was in her dragon form and unable to move, that was nothing compared to what could happen if the Collector did have the other serum available to him. _There was another drug_ , she told him. _One that Ambrose wanted to use on me._

She could see that Red hadn't known this. She had, after all, been as vague as possible when she told him what had happened to her at Ambrose's house. Since she was sure his people would have reported back on what they had found in Ambrose's lab, she wondered whether this meant it was more or less likely that the doctor who used to work for the dragon could have reconstructed both drugs now.

_And what was the effect of this other drug?_ Red asked her gently.

Being vague wasn't going to work in this case. She fixed her gaze on one of the smaller bars, a horizontal one, just below eye level. _Ambrose said it would force me to enter my season, as well as induce transformation_ , she said, after a long pause.

Red was silent for long enough that she couldn't stand not meeting his eyes. There was rage there, and rage in his thoughts, and Liz remembered times when he had killed to protect her. She looked away again. _I was afraid that might be part of what Frank means when he says he wants to 'help' all of us_ , she said. _Since I have the impression that we're, uh, kind of a dying breed._

He swallowed, still not speaking for a good minute. She saw a muscle in his face twitch. Then he finally nodded. _We are_ , he said. _But most of us accept that. Our ancestors intermarried with humans to survive, which worked for a while, and now we're reaching the natural consequences of that decision. This fool, whose aim I fear you've guessed correctly, can't possibly reverse generations of intermarriage. It's an impossible goal._

_Too bad we can't convince him of that._ Liz watched as David's aunt Anna Marie sat up slowly in her cage. She looked to be about the same age as Leah. As she took in her surroundings, Liz could see her go from shock to alarm, to frustrated anger as she recognized how trapped she was, with some help from David's quiet explanations. When her gaze traveled over to Red, her eyes narrowed, but she nodded to him. Red returned the gesture. The woman's reaction to Liz seemed to be one of curiosity – especially when David, Liz guessed, said something to her silently.

_Well, we're not just going to give in_ , Red said, returning to their previous topic. He was calmer now, or at least he appeared so. _And I think we'll have some time to try to develop a plan of action. It seems to me that Frank fancies himself a very methodical, careful man, so he will have several steps he wants to complete before that step._

Liz had noted how their captor seemed to be a stickler for exactitude and method, as well. She supposed that was a relief. Honestly, though, she wasn't sure how much good a few days to plan would do, since they were all well and truly at the mercy of these people.

The five dragons waited, mostly in silence, for several hours. Liz thought it had been about 2:30 when she had been captured, and it had been at least an hour since then. If Frank was as methodical as he seemed, they could expect to be left alone until the last unfortunate dragon was captured and brought in, and they would be given food at some point around that time. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do … except, of course, try not to imagine what they were all in for, and hope that the FBI and/or Reddington's people found them before too much unpleasantness had time to happen.

Somehow the time passed. Liz tried not to dwell on how similar her situation now was to how she had kept Tom chained up on that boat; sure, she hadn't really tortured him, but the distinctions weren't meaningful.

She leaned her head back against the cage bars. At least she could feel-- if not good, then something vaguely positive, that she had been able to warn Anna Marie Stowell privately about the two types of drug that she also might be facing (after she introduced herself briefly). The woman had kept her outward reaction to a minimum, but had thanked Liz for the advanced warning.

The light from the tiny windows near the ceiling of the warehouse faded. Soon after, the metal door at the other end opened. The same four men in white coats brought in an unconscious man on a gurney. This dragon, Liz saw, was very young, and she winced when she saw the scabbed-over wound on his forehead. Evidently they couldn't always capture their targets without a fight.

The men deposited the young dragon into the cage to Liz's right. They didn't speak or interact with any of the other caged dragons, and in fact Liz would have wondered whether the blankness of their expressions might not be because they were under orders from a dragon themselves – except she hoped there was none of their kind who would willingly work for Frank in any capacity. The thought was quite disturbing, even compared to everything else that had occurred today.

Liz got up and walked over so that she was as close to the newest member of their group as possible. It would be a while before he woke up, but she would be ready to give what help she could when he did.

_I don't recognize him at all_ , Red remarked. _He must be as young or younger than you – perhaps barely past his first transformation._

_That's terrible luck_ , Liz said with a sigh. _I hope he had someone to tell him what was going on, at least._

_Yes._ Red sounded sympathetic.

“Who's the kid?” David asked at almost the same moment. “He doesn't look familiar at all.”

“No,” agreed Anna Marie. She was looking at him keenly. “Poor boy.”

They all lapsed into silence again, until the newcomer started to stir. He moaned and raised a hand to his head before his eyes even opened. When they did, he blinked. “Huh? Where--?”

“Don't try to sit up just yet,” Liz advised, and he turned toward her sharply. Then he grimaced. “Sorry,” Liz continued. “It's the drugs they gave you. It'll wear off.”

The young stranger stared at her, then at the bars above him. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, after a few seconds.

Liz gave him as concise of a summary as she could, watching to see how much of it he seemed to follow. He was quiet, until she said, “And my name's Elizabeth, by the way. Elizabeth Keen.”

“Terrance Clark,” he returned. “Or at least, that's what's on my driver's license. I was adopted.”

“Does that mean you had no idea you were--?” Liz began, and Terrance shook his head.

“Nope. Not about any of this stuff. I was lucky I had this kind of instinctual urge to get out of the city a few days before I changed, you know? Otherwise I might have freaked my girlfriend out, and probably destroyed her house.” He sounded remarkably calm for how much of a complete upheaval he must have gone through. “I figured I probably wasn't the only one, though. Nice to know that's true.”

Liz smiled sadly. “I guess. But I can't imagine – I mean, I didn't know about this whole thing until I first changed, either, but I had someone to help me through it, at least. And now your introduction to the rest of us comes when you're captured and about to be part of a madman's experiments.”

“So this Collector dude is part-dragon, like us, but not enough to be able to change?” Terrance said, as he sat up slowly. At Liz's nod, he whistled. “Damn. And this is how he deals with his jealousy, I guess.”

When he saw Anna Marie and the others, Terrance gave a hesitant smile. “Uh, hi, everyone. You probably heard me introduce myself.”

In turn, he heard everyone else introduce themselves. Even Albert gave his name, though that was all he said. When Terrance asked what they all did for a living, Liz was faintly amused to hear Red describe himself as a businessman. David snorted loudly but didn't correct him. That was also how he had described his own work.

“Cool,” said Terrance, when they had finished going around. He scratched the back of his head. “Well, I was between jobs when all this hit. Before today, I was about to start working at a bookstore. I was kind of excited about it, too.”

Liz thought this almost bashful admission was sweet, and her pity for him increased. Even without being captured by the Collector, Terrance's life had obviously been hard enough.

Before the conversation could continue, the metal door to the warehouse opened again. This time, the four white-coated men wheeled in a cart that, by its smell, was their dinner. There was one other man with them who wasn't dressed as a doctor. They started from the back, at Anna Marie's and Terrance's cages first. It quickly became clear that the other man was a guard, equipped with a cattle prod that he held up menacingly as the cage doors were unlocked.

When Terrance and Anna Marie had received their dinners (a plate that looked to contain roast beef, vegetables, and potatoes, along with a water bottle), the group moved on to Liz and David. David's cage was opened just a few seconds ahead of Liz's, so David took the opportunity to speak to the guard. “Why don't you give me that cattle prod?” he asked, in a deep and oddly resonant voice.

The guard stared for a second. Then he sneered and gripped the weapon more tightly. “Don't bother trying that bullshit on me,” he said. “It won't work – and if you try it again, I'll take that as a threatening act and leave you begging for me to stop hitting you with high voltage current.”

David raised his hands in a placating gesture. “All right, I get it,” he said, his voice normal. _It was worth a try_ , he added, and Liz guessed he was broadcasting to all of the dragons present.

The rest of the food distribution went off without any excitement. Liz was glad enough to have the chance to eat, even if anxiety made her less hungry than she would have been otherwise. Before their attendants left, the guard turned around to address all of them: “In one hour, you will each be allowed one supervised trip to the bathroom. Then you will be returned to your cages, and the doctors will arrive to begin their tests soon after that. We've been told not to harm you if you don't give us reason to, so I suggest you don't.”

When they were left alone again, Red stood up from his meal and craned his neck to stare up at the ceiling. After a moment he smiled in satisfaction. “I thought so.”

“What?” Liz asked, following his gaze. Then she saw it: a small camera, almost hidden against the crossbeam at the peak of the ceiling. “Oh. Of course.” When she looked further, she saw there were two: one positioned in the center of the three cages on her side of the room (so, almost directly over her), and one in the same position on the other side.

“Well, that's kind of off-putting,” said Terrance. As they watched, the camera above them moved, in what seemed to be an automatic slow sweep of its range.

“You could say that.” She tore her eyes away from the camera and sat back down to eat. Her appetite was even less strong than before, but there was no point in weakening herself by not finishing the food. Still, it was difficult for the food not to stick in her throat. Even the fact that it tasted pretty good didn't help.

Now that they had a deadline, time seemed to go by much too fast. Liz knew she should be using this time to think of a way they could all get out of here, but her mind stayed frustratingly empty of useful plans. Some of the time, it was all she could do to keep herself calm. She supposed she could transform if she wanted, which would at least relieve her of the feeling that she might explode. But on the other hand, she didn't want to attract any extra attention. At least it felt like maybe the heat had been turned up in the warehouse; it was now almost not cold.

As promised, an hour later, more guards arrived to escort them to the bathroom in pairs. Liz and Anna Marie were taken together, of course, with one female guard for each of them. Beyond keeping careful track of the route by which they walked to the bathrooms, Liz stuck with the advice the guard had given: don't cause trouble.

Once everyone had been returned to their cages, the male doctor and Rochelle came into the warehouse. They were accompanied by a veritable army of other scientists, as well as the Collector himself. “If I could have your attention,” said the male doctor, whose name Liz still didn't know. He cleared his throat. “We will be administering an injection to each of you, at approximately the same time, which will start to paralyze you as it induces transformation to your dragon forms. The paralysis is temporary, of course, but it will last several hours. For your comfort and safety, we recommend you move to the center of your cage as soon as you receive the injection, so that you have the maximum amount of space around you when you, um, reach your full size. If you move quickly, it shouldn't be a problem for you to accomplish this before the paralysis sets in.”

Easy for you to say, Liz thought grimly. These people weren't the ones risking being unable to move while being pressed painfully against the bars of a cage. She smiled faintly, wondering how much Frank's people's nights would be ruined if they weren't able to get at all sides of one of their specimens due to poor timing. It seemed unlikely that they had the equipment to move a paralyzed dragon.

The doctor looked up, seeing that all of the captives were regarding him silently with varying levels of dislike. He cleared his throat again and said, “Okay. Let's get started.” Frank nodded, and everyone got busy.

The next several minutes were, when Liz thought back afterward, among the worst of the whole experience. There were enough armed guards that it would have been pointless to resist, so she and the others rolled up the sleeves on whatever arm they chose and waited near the entrance to their cages while they were unlocked. Then Liz stood still while the drug was injected into her shoulder. It stung terribly as it went in, but she could also already feel herself getting ready to change. She tried to avoid looking at anyone else – dragon or human – as she hurried back to the middle of her cage. Right away, it got hard to move. She took a gasping breath that didn't seem to give her enough oxygen. Then she turned around to face the door just as the change really hit – and as she collapsed.

Unlike usual, the transformation process made her feel nauseated. She wanted to keep her eyes closed until that decreased, but she heard the doctors start to come inside the cage with her just seconds later. She opened her eyes.

Chattering excitedly to each other about things like wingspan, coloration, and traits that might relate to sexual dimorphism, three scientists began to spread out around her. Rochelle was among them, Liz saw, but the two men were not ones she had seen before. One of the men looked to be older – almost old enough to be Rochelle's father – and the other was pretty young.

At first, the trio stayed as far back from her as they could in the confined space of the cage. (She had managed to position herself fairly centrally, Liz thought, but that still didn't leave much room around her.) She was lying partially on her left side, which was not a very comfortable position for her left wing. It could have been worse, she told herself. But lying there like a rare insect pinned in a display was just as awful, just as humiliating as she had imagined it would be.

As soon as they had completed their own visual examination, the scientists got closer to her. Liz wished she could even flinch when one of them climbed onto her and jabbed a large needle into her right arm-- right front leg, but she didn't move as they took the blood sample. They also took a sample of her scales, measured her heart rate with a very large stethoscope, and stuck what she guessed must be a veterinary thermometer in her ear. They didn't seem to stop taking pictures the whole time, either. Meanwhile, while they reported data to each other and recorded it, they kept up a near-constant stream of thrilled comments to each other about how amazing all of this was. “Just think,” one of them said to Rochelle at one point, while they were both standing on Liz's back, “these creatures were just legends before today! No one believed that there were any reptiles of this size left on the planet.”

“Yeah,” said Rochelle, as she wrote something down on a notepad. Then she sighed and glanced behind her. “It's too bad there's no safe way to observe them in flight. I'm sure it would be breathtaking to see.”

“On that note, let's move on to the wings, shall we?”

“Sure. Dennis, can you give us a hand?”

Liz stared dully, straight ahead, as she felt the humans do their best to manipulate her right wing. It was too heavy for them to really lift, but that didn't stop them from spending a long time there. Across from her, from her awkward angle, she could see the dark blue form of David sprawled across the floor of his cage. His mouth was slightly open, and the scientists in with him were taking the opportunity to examine his teeth. Liz felt her anger and humiliation rise, and she wished fervently that David's paralysis would wear off just enough that he could attack the humans blithely going about their examination. But just as quickly as it rose, the strong emotion dissipated. There was no point.

_Don't let despair win out, Lizzie_ , Red said from to her left. She couldn't see him at all from where she lay, but if she listened hard, she could hear the scientists in his cage discussing the scars on his wings. _You should be angry. You should be furious. We are nobody's property to be catalogued and documented, and they will be sorry they treated us with such a lack of dignity._

She heard the cold anger as well as the compassion in his voice, but she couldn't summon up the energy to join in. _But how can you know that?_ she asked. _Isn't it going to be pretty much impossible for Cooper or your people to find us? They hardly know where to start looking._ And if they did find us, she thought to herself, there was a good chance they wouldn't even recognize us.

_Don't you think you're selling Dembe, Mr. Kaplan, Donald, Samar, Aram, and Harold just a little bit short?_ Red replied. _It won't be easy, for them or for us, but give it some time. And in the meanwhile, stay alert for any opportunities._

She sighed, although that was barely possible due to the effects of the drug. _All right. I'll try._

At that moment, the man Liz thought might be Dennis appeared right in front of her face and shone a light into her eye. She couldn't pull away, of course. Dennis took a picture without flash, wrote something down, and then stood there for a few seconds. Then he took another picture and repeated the process. “Interesting,” he muttered.

Liz took this chance to memorize Dennis's appearance herself. She would get out of here (she told herself this even if she didn't quite believe it), and she would see that this man was brought to justice.

“Burt,” came Rochelle's voice, from just at the edge of Liz's field of vision. She was crouched down next to Liz's right front foot. “Did you get photos of how the scarring we noticed on the hand is visible even in this form?”

“No, I hadn't gotten there yet,” Burt said, from somewhere near Liz's tail. “So it's present even after the transformation? Just like the scar near the neckline. Fascinating.”

Wanting nothing more than to tighten her talons over her palm – or perhaps use them to shake these humans into terrified submission – Liz lay there as all three of them came over to examine her scar. She hadn't even thought to look at it while she was transformed, but it didn't exactly surprise her to know it was still there in some way.

There was the click-click of more photos being taken. Then Dennis said, “This whole transformation thing is incredible. We still haven't even scratched the surface of it, have we?”

“No, we're not even close to understanding the mechanisms involved,” Rochelle answered. “But Mr. Vandenberg assures me we'll be given all the time and access we need to get to that point.”

“I thought he wanted to move on to breeding pretty soon,” said Burt. He sounded curious.

“Well, yes, relatively soon,” Rochelle acknowledged, “but that doesn't have to totally interrupt the rest of our research.”

Liz felt panic threaten to overwhelm her again. She concentrated on breathing steadily, and as deeply as possible. There was some time. What she had just heard confirmed that, even as it confirmed she had reason to be worried about the second serum. It wasn't useful to freak out in the meantime, anyway.

At last, the examination seemed to be over. Liz watched in relief as the three scientists filed out of the cage, locking the door behind them. She did her best to memorize the features of Burt and Rochelle, as well, although she was sure she would have much more time than she needed to do that. For now, once they had all been left alone, she was suddenly very tired. And now the lights were turned out, which didn't help her want to stay awake.

_Rest, Lizzie_ , Red said softly. If he said anything else, she missed it as sleep overtook her.

~


	6. Chapter 6

~

Liz woke up partway through the night. She wasn't sure what caused it, but when she opened her eyes, she saw in the dimness that several of the others had transformed back to their human forms. The drug must have worn off.

She decided to test the theory. Quietly, so as not to wake Terrance or Red (who both were still in their dragon forms and seemed to be asleep), she tried to shift position. It took a moment, but then she was able to do it. With relief, she stretched her wings as much as was possible in the cage without hitting the bars. Then she relaxed again, and debated whether or not she should stay as she was or go back to her human shape before she went back to sleep. It was nice, as Red had told her once, to be able to relax completely. On the other hand... But even before she had finished the thought, she was already asleep.

A loud crash, like something heavy falling off a shelf, woke her very early the next morning. She blinked and turned her head toward the wall behind her. It had definitely come from outside. But whatever it was, it didn't repeat. She turned back around and stretched again. It felt so good to be able to move, even though it was of course restricted.

Liz looked over at Red's cage. He was awake, she saw, but he too was still in his true form. Now that she could actually turn in that direction, she noted that the cage was a little more cramped for him than it was for her, though not too claustrophobically so. He had noticed her movement, she thought, but he didn't stir.

Liz recalled suddenly how she had heard the scientists in his cage last night talking about the visible traces of the damage Ambrose had inflicted on his wings. She was about to see for herself when she stopped, ashamed. It wasn't like he needed anyone else staring at him, in addition to the humans that were all too eager to do so.

“Whoa.”

Liz turned toward the whisper to her right. It was Terrance, back in his human form. He smiled a little, his eyes wide, when she looked at him. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I know you just had a bunch of people staring at you. It's just-- I've never had much chance to … to see how we look when we've changed.”

She thought back to the time after her first transformation, and smiled almost wistfully in return. _It's all right. I understand._

He took a step back, his eyes widening even further. “How--” He lowered his voice and looked over his shoulder guiltily. “How are you talking to me?”

_In your mind_ , she explained. _You can do it, too, even when you're not in your dragon form._

“I can?” Terrance paused for a second. _I can? Damn, I really can!_

She laughed, not out loud, and then sighed. It just didn't seem fair that Terrance had to discover so much about his draconic heritage here of all places. Any lingering sleepiness had faded, so she took another deep breath and made the change back to her human form. At least it really was warmer in the warehouse than it had been for most of yesterday. But she could really use a shower, and a toothbrush – and a hairbrush too, for that matter.

_Do you think they'll give us a change of clothes or anything?_ Terrance asked, unknowingly echoing her line of thought again.

Liz told him she thought it was likely. After all, they wanted to keep their subjects healthy.

It wasn't much longer before all six of them were awake and human-sized again. They were all, unsurprisingly, rather subdued. Liz wasn't sure how much of the same kind of treatment they could expect, but she guessed to scientists, they were a treasure trove.

As a matter of fact, as Liz had predicted, the dragons were given the option of a shower before breakfast that morning. It was in the same building where they had been taken to use the bathroom the previous evening, and it was a locker-room style shower. Liz supposed she should be grateful that the guards for her and Anna Marie didn't feel the need to watch their charges' every move, though they stood very nearby. Clean sets of scrubs were provided for them after they had finished.

Breakfast, back in their cages, was filling though uninteresting. Liz would have appreciated some coffee, but that didn't seem to be part of their full-service accommodations. She did notice that the meal had been protein-heavy, with plenty of red meat. One of the reasons for that became clear a little after their dishes had been taken away, when some of the doctors from last night came by with their accompanying guards to collect another blood sample. The one who took her blood was Rochelle. Liz didn't resist, mindful of the guard with the electric cattle prod at the ready. However, when Rochelle came near enough to fasten the tourniquet on her upper arm, Liz said in an undertone, “You know, I'm curious, Rochelle. Is it any harder when we're like this?”

Rochelle looked up at her face, startled. “Excuse me?” Then she looked away quickly, to finish preparing Liz for the blood draw. “Is what harder?”

“Is it any harder to treat us like animals when we look like you? Or are you and your colleagues just that stunningly cold-blooded?” She emphasized the last word and maintained her gaze on the woman's face, even when she felt the needle go into the crook of her arm. “Because if it's the latter, I guess that would make you particularly suited to this job.”

Rochelle flushed, but she didn't reply. She also didn't meet Liz's eyes again during the whole interaction. “Keep your arm elevated for a full minute to slow the bleeding,” she said once the bandage was on. Then she turned to leave the cage.

“It's interesting to think about which ones of us act more like human beings, don't you think?” Liz called after her, and the woman froze for an instant before she hurried away. The guard banged the cattle prod on the cage bars and snarled at Liz not to talk. She smiled and said nothing further as she watched Rochelle leave. From Terrance's cage, she heard his quiet chuckle.

The doctor in Red's cage, whose name Liz didn't know, was just finishing up drawing Red's blood when Red leaned in close and said something that Liz couldn't hear. From the way the man flinched, Liz guessed that his words had found their mark, too. The guard there noticed as well, because he made the same threat as Liz's guard had made, more loudly.

The captives were left alone after that until lunch. Then they were allowed another bathroom break and taken back to their cages, and the guard who seemed to be in command told them the doctors would be back for the next round of degrading, humiliating observations and tests (he might not have used those exact words) in a few hours. But in the meantime, Liz had had an idea. She thought it over for a while once the guards had left, and then decided it was time to discuss it.

_Red_ , she asked, and he turned toward her, _do you think these people know about our telepathic ability, like they knew about the hypnosis or whatever you want to call it?_

He was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. _Hard to say. I'm guessing they learned about our talent for persuasion through Albert's failed attempts to change Frank's mind, so unless Albert had any reason to divulge it to Frank..._

_Well, let's ask Albert, then,_ Liz said. When he cocked a questioning eyebrow at her, she explained, _I was just thinking, if the guards don't like us trying to reason with the doctors out loud, we could talk to them this way. Or we could even try to--_ She paused, and then went on. _We could try to talk to them while they have us paralyzed and at their mercy. At the very least, even if they already know we can communicate this way, it would make it harder for them to concentrate on their work, and therefore maybe harder to pretend that we're just scientific curiosities. And if they don't know about it, and they start hearing voices in their heads..._

Red smiled. _Then they may start to doubt their sanity. You see_ , he said, standing up, _I knew you'd find an opportunity that we could exploit, Lizzie. Let's find out what Albert has shared._

Albert, it turned out, had never had reason to be tortured for this information. As far as he knew, his grandson wasn't aware of this draconic ability, and therefore it was highly unlikely that his grandson's employees knew about it, either. When Red and Liz passed on Liz's idea, Liz saw Albert give a genuine smile, for the first time since she had met him. Of course, it was tinged with cruel anticipation, but Liz could hardly blame him. _I very much doubt any kind of communication with Frank will change his mind or what's left of his heart by now_ , the old man said, _but his underlings – they're another story entirely._

The rest of the group also liked the idea. Each one was left to his or her own ideas of how best to rattle the doctors that would be arriving soon enough. If the humans truly didn't know about this possibility, it might, for example, be best not to reveal where the voices were coming from. Or then again, maybe hearing their paralyzed victims' voices despite their circumstances might scare them more. They were all agreed, however, not to try to speak to the guards. It would add a layer of anxiety for the scientists if the guards had no idea why they were reacting in fear.

Liz had already planned out her angle of attack when the guards and scientists arrived. (Frank Vandenberg, the Collector, was not with them this time.) First, she made sure to meet each of her three tormentors' eyes before she obeyed the guard's injunction to come forward and receive her dose of the drug. She knew what to expect this time, and made herself as comfortable as possible before the change hit and she could no longer move. Then, when Burt, Dennis, and Rochelle had all entered her enclosure, she began.

_Dennis_ , she said. The man was almost out of her field of vision, but she saw him stop and glance around in confusion. She thought she had seen enough of the interactions between the three scientists last night for this to work. _Dennis, are you really just going to let her keep ordering you around like this? Where does she get the authority to give you orders?_ At that very moment, Rochelle was dividing up the tasks of the next few hours, as she had yesterday.

“Who said that?” Dennis demanded, looking around again. He had cut Rochelle off mid-phrase.

“Said what?” Burt asked, after a pause.

“I--” Dennis took a deep breath. “I thought I heard something. Never mind. Sorry, Dr. Cross. Please continue.”

Rochelle sounded concerned. “Are you all right, Dennis?”

He sounded just the smallest bit defensive when he assured her he was fine. Liz felt the beginnings of triumph as he said, “Go ahead.”

“Okay, if you're sure. And please, call me Rochelle.”

Liz let Rochelle finish dividing up the tasks before she said, _Well, she calls you by your first name, Dennis, so I guess it's only right that you call her by hers, too. Even if she is young enough to be your daughter._

Dennis looked around again, wildly. His gaze settled on her right eye, the one that could see him right now, but Liz kept her expression resigned. (She wasn't even sure how much of her expression a normal human could read, anyway.)

From what Liz had heard, even while she was distracting Dennis, the first item of business for the scientists was to measure her length, and then use a few other measurements to estimate her weight. At least that wouldn't be overly invasive, Liz thought – although it was of course hard to ignore people crawling all over her in order to get the measurements they wanted. But they didn't have to tickle her too much with a tape measure. They seemed to be using digital devices for that.

Meanwhile, she gave Dennis a short break and turned her attention to Rochelle. Her strategy here was a little riskier; if she kept going on the same path she'd started on this morning, Rochelle was smart enough to make the connection. But her words this morning had found their mark, and Liz thought the risk was worth it. _I guess it makes sense_ , she said to Rochelle, knowing the woman could hear her even though she was currently out of sight. _Frank Vandenberg is a sociopath, so he'd need to hire sociopaths to work for him. It would certainly explain how you have no qualms about doing these things to prisoners – people who you know have the same rights as anyone else, no matter what they might happen to look like some of the time._

Rochelle, who Liz thought was somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulders right now, had stopped moving as soon as Liz started to speak. She still hadn't moved, or at least not that Liz could feel. Liz kept going. _I mean, even aside from how excited you are to poke and prod and examine the 'specimens', you don't seem to have any issues with your boss's disgusting breeding idea, which you have to know amounts to medical rape. How could any human being who isn't totally lacking in empathy and normal decency accept all that? They couldn't. So that's my evidence for you being a monster, Rochelle._

While Liz laid out her case, Rochelle made her way off Liz's back and over to where she could stand in front of Liz's face. The woman looked shaken, and angry. She glanced behind Liz's head, then looked into her eyes. “Was that you?” she hissed, bending close.

Liz said nothing. She wasn't going to make anything easy for her.

Rochelle narrowed her eyes. “Listen, I don't know how you're doing that, but it has to stop. If you don't stop, I'll...” She trailed off, looking toward the guard and then biting her lip.

Liz stayed silent, but didn't bother trying not to enjoy the dawning realization on Rochelle's face: if she told the guard that Liz was causing trouble, the guard would have no proof of this for himself. In fact, he'd probably think Rochelle was crazy, if she said Liz was talking to her.

“Just stop, all right?” Rochelle whispered. She pushed her hair behind her ear, and then hurried away to answer Burt's summons. “Yeah, sorry, I'm coming.”

_You'd probably like to be able to keep ignoring the mounting evidence of your total lack of decency_ , Liz said, as soon as she was out of sight again. _But I don't think you should be allowed to. I'll make sure you're not allowed to._

She decided that was enough for now. The next target was Burt. She hadn't gotten as much of a read on him yet, other than that he was young and enthusiastic. She decided, for lack of any other inspiration, to go with a good old-fashioned gaslighting. After all, hadn't he just been remarking yesterday on how unbelievable all of this was? She would have felt bad about considering this method, but then she remembered that Burt knew about his boss's plans for 'breeding' the captives, too, and didn't seem to care. So she went to work.

_You know this isn't real, right?_ Liz said into Burt's mind. _Dragons? Shapechanging? It doesn't make any logical sense. How about the laws of physics? Something as huge as a dragon can't just change into something as small as a human._ She recalled that much from her science studies, and had wondered about it herself.

Burt coughed and took a few seconds to recover before he reported his latest measurement to the others. At least she had succeeded in startling him. She went on, _And now, in case you haven't noticed, you're hearing voices. What's next, Burt? Unicorns? Wizards?_

Now there was a definite note of panic in the man's voice. “Uh, guys, I think-- I think I need a quick break.”

“For what?” snapped Dennis. “We're in the middle of this, and if you leave it'll take us twice as long to get the measurements we still have left.”

“Dennis, it's all right,” said Rochelle, in a soothing tone that Liz thought might be just the wrong way to calm him down. “Burt, if you really need to take a break, that's fine, but Dennis is right that you'll be setting us back. Our time is limited, after all.”

_And that's another thing_ , Liz put in. _Doesn't it seem a little too convenient to you that you have this drug developed especially for dragons, that paralyzes them as well as forcing them to transform? Have you studied its composition?_ She was banking on the Collector's desire to get this process moving as fast as possible; if the scientist who had come from Ambrose's operation had told him he had something that worked, she doubted Vandenberg would have wanted to waste time having his findings confirmed by the others once they came on board.

Burt was silent for a minute. “I guess I'm fine,” he said. He gave a short, unconvincing laugh. “Just-- didn't get enough sleep, or something.”

Liz let him be for a little while, and then said, _Fine. Go ahead and keep participating in the delusion if you want. I guess it's only hurting you._

There was a noticeable lessening of the excitement and camaraderie from last night during the rest of this session. Liz thought this was true for the rest of the cages and their human visitors, as well. Burt dropped his digital tape measure at one point, and Dennis yelled at him for slowing them down again. When Rochelle tried to step in, he snapped at her, too. “Why don't you just stick to your own work and stop micromanaging, _Rochelle?_ ”

Rochelle had remained calm when she replied, but Liz hadn't neglected to tell her, _See, some of your colleagues are showing signs that they might find this work disturbing. But not you. You just keep on going. Hey, just a reminder: you're currently standing on the back of someone who is fully aware of what's happening, who can hear and understand everything you say, and who didn't consent to any of this._

Once they finished all the measuring they needed, the three of them climbed down and away from Liz. Burt, Liz noticed, kept shooting her little glances with wide eyes – like maybe he expected her to disappear or fade away in front of him. _Nope, the dragon is still there_ , she said. _Or at least you're still seeing it._

Rochelle cleared her throat, and motioned for the guard to come closer. “There should still be about half an hour before the paralysis wears off,” she announced, loudly enough that those in the other cages could hear as well. “Once it does, we will need each, um, subject to return to their human forms immediately, so that we can take another blood sample right away.” Liz thought she saw some emotion flicker across her face as she said, “The guards will be on hand to … encourage your compliance.”

_Threats and torture_ , Liz commented. _Would you watch, if one of the 'subjects' decided not to comply? Maybe that's what you really want to see._

Rochelle glared at her, but said nothing more.

Now, apparently, there was nothing for the scientists to do but wait. Some of them were comparing notes from their measurements, but again, it seemed to Liz like the overall mood was tense and uneasy. Liz made sure to point out this disorganization to Dennis, insinuating that if he were in charge, there wouldn't be this much wasted time. In response, he shot an evil look at Rochelle and folded his arms.

Liz was beginning to think this remaining period of time might pass almost pleasantly. Then the door to the warehouse opened again, and Frank Vandenberg entered. He was accompanied by a few more guards. “What's going on right now, Rochelle?” he called out.

“Uh, we're waiting for the paralytic-transformative to wear off, sir,” Rochelle replied. “Once it does, the subjects have been instructed to return to their human forms so they can have another blood sample taken. That's so that we can see if there's any evidence of--”

“Yes, I remember,” Vandenberg cut her off, with a trace of irritation. “How long before the drug wears off?”

The other lead doctor, whose name Liz still hadn't heard, jumped in. “It should be in about ten minutes, sir.”

The Collector nodded. “Good.” He didn't, as Liz wished, leave; it seemed he was here to observe the rest of the proceedings. He took a slow tour of the six cages, and once again his scrutiny when he got to her made Liz feel a chill down her spine. It was ridiculous. In this form, she was so much bigger than him that it was absurd to be threatened by his gaze. But then again, she was his prisoner … and the cruel greed in his expression made it worse than most of the other times she'd been a captive.

At least that gave her another idea of how to continue prodding at Burt. _Okay, and now we have the bad guy in charge of the operation. He's clearly evil, and yet you're working for him. This is a seriously messed-up delusion you're having, Burt._

Burt watched Vandenberg pace past Terrance's cage, and Liz thought she saw him swallow convulsively.

When Vandenberg got around to Albert's cage, he knelt down so he could look at the old dragon right in the face. Liz couldn't really see what either of them did, but she also couldn't think of any not-horrible reason for the man to take his time at this particular cage. She shuddered internally. _Rochelle_ , she said, _did you know the man in that cage is Vandenberg's own grandfather? He captured his own grandfather, tortured him for years, and now he's got him locked up in a cage for you people to experiment on. This is the kind of man you're working for._

At this, Rochelle shot a sharp look at her boss, then looked back toward Liz. Her lips thinned. Then Frank stood up and asked again how much time was left. She looked at her watch and reported, “Three minutes, sir.”

The man crossed his arms. “Rochelle, do you think the subjects will be cooperative with their instructions? Will they transform as soon as possible?”

She looked at him nervously. “Sir?”

“Do they believe we're in control?”

“I-- I think so, Mr. Vandenberg.”

_That guy creeps me the hell out_ , Terrance said.

_You're not the only one_ , David answered dryly. _And he's extremely arrogant, on top of that._

_Not without reason, David_ , Anna Marie pointed out. _He does, after all, have us all where he wants us._

_Well, I don't like how he's just assuming we'll stay in line_ , Terrance said. _I feel like we should--_

_He's egging us on_ , Red cut in. _He wants us to rebel. He's looking for an excuse to show us who's boss. So it's up to each of us how we want to respond, with that in mind._

When the other lead doctor informed Frank that there was one minute left, the man ordered the guards to be sure their stun guns were on the highest setting. Then, to Liz's alarm, and over the objections of Rochelle who shouted out that they couldn't even be sure exactly when the drug would wear off, the Collector commanded two men each to shock each dragon. “Stop when you see signs they're transforming,” he conceded.

Liz tried to prepare herself mentally, as well as keeping alert for when she could move. But when the two guards – one of whom was grinning as he walked past Liz's field of vision – stuck their cattle prods into the cage between the bars, she was almost glad not to be able to move yet. She was sure she would have screamed.

The pain at each of her sides was like fire, like the cattle prods were white-hot and like the fire was spreading along her hide. Liz struggled to draw in every breath while the electricity continued to flow into her body. She was aware that she was thrashing involuntarily. If her wings or any other part of her was coming into contact with the bars, though, she didn't feel it. It was impossible to concentrate on anything but just making it through this.

Some amount of time passed. It seemed endless, but that wasn't logical. There was shouting from outside her cage, and then eventually the guard on her right side stopped and stepped away. With the reduction in the extreme pain and resulting incapacitation, Liz was finally able to try to see if the paralyzing drug had worn off. It seemed to be gone. She didn't want to change back, though – not while she was still being hit with such high voltage. But if she didn't change back...

Finally, she started the change – and she was deeply relieved when the cattle prod was pulled away a second later. When she was back in her human shape, she opened her eyes, panting, and tried to get up. But everything hurt too much, and her limbs felt like jelly. She slumped back to the ground, shaking. Her entire body was coated in sweat.

Liz heard the cage door open, and heard someone approaching where she lay in the middle of the enclosure. She was nearly as unable to move as she had been minutes ago. Rochelle crouched down next to her, then turned over her shoulder. “Dennis, could you help me get her up, please? Quickly?”

The other scientist hurried to join them, and with Rochelle, gently lifted Liz and carried her so that she could be leaned against the cage bars. Liz was still shaking and couldn't stop, so Dennis held her arm still while Rochelle got the necessary blood sample. They were both quiet, and when Liz finally met their eyes, she thought she saw pity and dismay from both humans. She couldn't summon up a comment for either of them, though.

Dennis left shortly before Rochelle, once the bandage was applied. Before she departed, Rochelle bent down close to Liz, ostensibly to unwrap the tourniquet from her upper arm. But as Liz did her best to keep taking deep breaths and riding out the aftereffects, Rochelle met her eyes again. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. Then she picked up the vial of Liz's blood and left.

It took another ten minutes at least after the guards, scientists, and Vandenberg had left before Liz felt anywhere near like herself again. The tremors had stopped, and the lingering pain was dissipating. She hadn't had a chance to notice if she had bruised her wings or her tail during this ordeal, but she was sore all over. When she very carefully touched the areas above her hips where the electricity had been applied, she found that her skin was not broken or blistered, but it was definitely tender. That fit with what she knew of the effects of this type of weapon.

_Holy shit_ , said Terrance, with feeling. He was facing away from her in his cage, and like her, hadn't moved since he was placed there by his doctors.

_Couldn't have said it better myself_ , Anna Marie said. _Is everyone all right?_

Liz reached up to move her hair out of her face. Her arms still felt weak, and like they weighed too much to lift. But at least the shaking was gone. _I'm getting there._

David chimed in to say he was recovering, as well, and Red said he was fine.

Albert took longer to reply. _I don't … think I can handle much more of that kind of treatment_ , he said quietly. _My heart has been through enough already. In fact I thought it might decide enough was enough earlier, but thankfully it hasn't yet._

_Then we have to make sure this doesn't happen again_ , was Red's firm response.

_How?_ said Liz, turning her head so that she could see Albert and just barely see Red in her peripheral vision. _Even if none of us ever do anything resembling rebellion, it's obvious that Vandenberg doesn't need an excuse. And it's not like we can appeal to any compassion._

Red was unruffled. _I didn't mean we should rely on any logical or humane patterns of behavior from Frank_ , he said. _That would be foolish. I meant that our urgency for getting out of here has just increased._

_Well, of course I agree, Raymond_ , Anna Marie said. _But I'm curious – how do you see an escape happening, at this point?_

_We still have work to do before it's within reach_ , Red acknowledged. _However, Vandenberg might have actually done us a favor with that stunt he just pulled._

_A favor?_ David sounded like he thought Red was crazy. Liz was very familiar with that tone.

But Terrance got it. _You mean, because he made the doctors feel sorry for us_ , he said.

_Precisely_ , said Red. _Even the ones who still prefer to think of us as nothing but scientific curiosities were forced for a while to see us as creatures made to suffer for no logical reason. Now we need to follow up on that advantage._

They all were quiet for a while. Then David said grudgingly, _That's a good point. But are we really pinning all of our hopes on a bunch of scientists who, until a few minutes ago, seemed perfectly happy to treat us like lab rats? We're going to hope they'll feel so sorry for us that they'll leave our cages unlocked overnight and knock out the security cameras?_

_That would be nice, but I doubt they'll be that cooperative_ , answered Red.

_But we might be able to hope more realistically that they start to resist following some of Vandenberg's more extreme orders_ , Liz put in. Another idea occurred to her. _Or even that one or two of them might leave work and do something that catches the attention of the FBI, or the others who are looking for us._

_Yes, that was more what I was thinking_ , Red said approvingly.

The rest of the day was mercifully free from anything else difficult. The captives were left alone, aside from a welcome chance to shower and change out of sweat-soaked clothes, and then dinner several hours later. Once the lights were off for the evening, Liz thought about transforming again. She wanted to know how badly she might have injured herself – and she was also tempted to take advantage of how much better she slept when she was able to relax completely, in her true form. It was, as Red had told her a long time ago, not a chance she would have often. The only drawback she could see would be having another transformation recorded by the security cameras. Maybe the only one done willingly, in fact.

In the end, she decided to go ahead, though none of her companions had yet left their human forms. She was instantly aware of bruises on both of her wings, and one on her tail. They hurt, but they didn't seem to be too serious. She could only guess at what they looked like, since it was dark and she couldn't really twist around to get close to the sites of the bruises in the cramped quarters of her cage.

_Not too badly bruised, I hope_ , said Red.

Liz turned her head. It was, she thought to herself, strange to be able to look down on him. _No, I'm all right_ , she told him.

_I'm glad to hear it._ There wasn't enough light for her to be sure, but she thought he was smiling as he continued to look up at her – a genuine smile.

_And how about you?_

_Nothing too serious_ , he replied. She thought he was going to say something further, but then he stiffened. _Pardon me a moment, Lizzie_ , he said, and then walked over to the door of his cage to stare at David, who was at the front of his own cage. They must have exchanged words, Liz guessed – and whatever Red said to the other dragon resulted in him scoffing and walking away.

_What was that about?_ she asked.

_Oh, just a minor difference of opinion_ , Red said easily, which immediately raised her suspicions. But he wouldn't divulge any details. Instead, he just told her she should get some sleep.

Liz fell asleep quickly and slept deeply. But in the middle of the night, she woke up from a terrible dream in which she was watching everyone she cared about – Ressler, Samar, Red, Sam, Meera, and others – being tortured, while she was helpless to stop it and while Frank Vandenberg looked on in satisfaction. She thought maybe Frank's face had morphed into Tom's once or twice. Tom was a victim some of the time, as well. When she woke up, she was relieved at least that she hadn't made a sound. As far as she knew, anyway.

The images from her nightmare were starting to fade, but Liz still hadn't fully calmed down. She wasn't sure she would – at least, not enough to go back to sleep. She changed back into her human shape and crept to the back of her cage. She wanted to be able to curl up tightly, and this was the form in which she could do that.

She only caught snatches of sleep after this. Nearly every time she closed her eyes, she saw the anticipation on the face of the Collector as the guards went to do his bidding, or felt the terrible helplessness of being unable to move. As a result, when the door to the warehouse opened and the guards came in to escort them to the bathroom, Liz felt far from rested. A shower did little to revive her.

~


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor warning for threats of non-con in this chapter only.

~  
During breakfast, Liz saw that her companions, especially Albert, all seemed a little worse for wear, too. Everyone looked tense, and tired, and no one was interested in talking.

The only nice thing about the day was how little they were bothered. Evidently something else was happening that required the attention of the doctors and their boss elsewhere, because there was hardly a glimpse of any of them until after dinner. Once the dragons' plates were taken away, Rochelle and the others arrived (without Vandenberg, thankfully) to take another blood sample from their charges.

Rochelle, Liz thought, looked distracted and worried even before she entered Liz's cage with a guard. Liz offered her left arm silently, but as Rochelle knelt down, she said, with an edge of sarcasm, _You look troubled today, Rochelle. Something on your mind?_

She looked up from preparing the vial. Then she opened her mouth, but didn't say anything.

_Seriously. What is it, Rochelle?_

But the woman had looked away again. She didn't speak during the whole of the blood draw. When she stood up to leave, though, the expression in her eyes when she met Liz's, just for a second, was pure guilt.

Liz watched her leave, keeping her arm elevated to stop the bleeding at the needle site. She was puzzled by this reaction. She knew Rochelle had felt guilty after the torture Vandenberg had ordered yesterday, but that didn't explain how upset the doctor seemed today. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she would think this guilt was about...

A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her. What if this was in anticipation of some new horror, yet to be inflicted? And it had been directed at Liz. There was only one thing that all this pointed to. She put her other hand to her mouth, breathing slowly and evenly.

_Lizzie? Is something wrong?_

She didn't move from where she was seated. She had a brief, wild thought of doing as he had done last night and just saying it wasn't anything important. But of course it was important, and if her guess was correct, he needed to know about this, too. _I'm not sure, but something about how Rochelle was acting with me just then makes me think..._ She paused. It was a little easier to keep her voice level telepathically. _It makes me think Vandenberg might be planning to move on to the next stage, the part that involves the second drug._

After a pause, Red asked, _What makes you think that?_ His voice, too, sounded carefully controlled.

Liz passed on the indicators she had seen. _I don't know what else would make her behave that way toward me. And it makes sense that she wouldn't straight-out tell me, even if she is sympathetic. She might see it as pointless or even cruel, since there's no way out of it for me._ Her hands were clenched in her lap, and she was starting to hyperventilate. She forced herself to stop.

Red didn't reply right away. Then she heard him walking up to the edge of his cage, behind her. “Lizzie,” he said, “whatever happens, it's going to be all right.”

Liz stood up slowly and turned around to look at him. His concern and care were obvious. Like she had the last time he had said this to her, in that same gentle tone, she desperately wanted to believe him. But they were both prisoners this time, and so he was not in control behind the scenes. Tears pricked at her eyes suddenly and she looked away.

She imagined scenario after scenario for how tomorrow would go, if she was right about what was ahead, and none of them ended anything close to well. The best case, probably, would be if the scientists decided they needed to be in control of as many aspects of this as possible. That would likely mean they would administer the drug, and then knock her out and take her to a lab to finish the process. She thought of the women at the Cypress Agency, and cringed. It was cowardly, but when given the option of either being unconscious or not, she knew she would choose the former. She didn't want to have even a part of her still aware if she were forced into season. She supposed if she tried to look at it objectively now, of the options available to her, she would probably end up choosing Terrance as a mate. Terrance, who wouldn't have any clue what the hell was going on. Her stomach twisted even further. She should warn him. But the idea made her feel even closer to throwing up.

Still not looking at Red, she walked to the back of her cage again and sat down with her knees to her chest. _Red_ , she said. He was still standing where she had left him.

_Yes, Lizzie?_

She took a shuddering breath, glanced at Terrance, and looked away again. The young dragon was seated near the front of his cage, staring at nothing in particular. Lost in thought, perhaps. He seemed like a nice guy, friendly and intelligent – attractive, too – and under other circumstances, Liz might well have wanted to get to know him better. But not like this. _Um, I--_ She stopped, but then forced herself to go on. _If I'm right about Vandenberg moving on to the second drug tomorrow, I think Terrance should probably be warned about – what might happen if it works. But I don't think I can do it._ Before Red could reply, another thought occurred to her. _I'll, uh, talk to Anna Marie, though, since I guess she'll be next._

Red sounded carefully calm again when he assured her he would take care of telling Terrance. She supposed the other men should know about what might lie ahead, too, but she couldn't bring herself to mention them.

Instead, she took another deep breath and contacted Anna Marie. _I thought you should know_ , she said, after a tentative greeting, _that there's a high probability that they're starting experiments with the second drug soon, maybe tomorrow. And, uh, if I'm right, it looks like they're starting with me._

The other woman came to the front of her cage and looked toward her. Liz knew it was probably hard to see her from this angle, but she didn't get up. She didn't think she could at the moment. _I'm sorry to hear that_ , Anna Marie said eventually. _You're not certain, though?_

_No, it's just a guess based on the way the doctor acted when she was taking my blood_ , Liz admitted.

_Well, then let's hope you misunderstood what you observed_ , Anna Marie said, though she didn't sound hopeful. _But thank you for the warning, regardless._

The two women agreed they would share any plans they might come up with to avoid this threat if either of them thought of any. Liz had little hope of success in this, but she held onto the possibility that she had in fact been wrong. Maybe Rochelle was just having a crisis of conscience in general. Maybe.

Liz didn't initiate a conversation with any of the others for the rest of the day. Nothing really tenable came to mind as far as plans in the event her guess was correct. All she could think of were delay tactics. She could stay in dragon form, despite the electric shocks that would no doubt be used to punish her, and then at least they would not be able to take her anywhere she didn't want to go. But it was likely they would be able to inject her anyway, and then maybe use its effects to manipulate her into transforming back into her human form, since by all accounts she would lose any thoughts of resisting once the goddamn drug was in her veins. If she decided the risk was worth it, she thought, looking down at the needle marks in the crook of her elbow, she could also try to injure herself. She would have to make it bad enough to delay any thought of using the second drug, but not bad enough that Vandenberg's doctors wouldn't be able to fix her before any damage was permanent. In short, she couldn't see any good options.

The rest of the day passed in a combination of boredom and anxiety that was vastly worse than usual. Liz could barely make herself eat anything at either lunch or dinner, though she knew it wouldn't make things better if she didn't have any energy to draw on later. The doctors who brought the food for both meals looked at her sharply when they came to pick it up and saw her mostly full plates.

Her lack of appetite was of enough concern to warrant a special visit from the doctors an hour after dinner. It wasn't Rochelle, unfortunately. Instead, it was the other lead doctor, whom Rochelle had called Dr. Bradley. He waited impatiently outside her cage while the guard unlocked it, and then came inside and cast a critical eye over Liz where she sat. “Are you feeling sick?” he asked, after several seconds.

Liz shook her head. She wasn't – not the way he was thinking. “Just not hungry.”

“Hmm.” The young man frowned, then gestured for the guard to come closer. “I'm going to take your temperature just to be sure. Please don't make any sudden moves.”

Liz took the thermometer obediently, without doing anything that could be construed as threatening. Internally, though, she was furious. This was the man who had been working for Gordon Ambrose. This was the man who had brought both of the serums he helped develop to Vandenberg, so that the Collector could capture and torment dragons at his whim. If it weren't for him, she and the others would very likely not be here.

After Dr. Bradley took the thermometer back, frowning again as he muttered that it was normal, Liz decided to speak up. “Why are you working for Vandenberg?” she asked. Even though she was fairly certain it wasn't going to work, she allowed her voice to take on the resonance that heralded an attempt to force the man to answer truthfully. And indeed, she encountered the same resistance Tom had provided, but even more strongly. She wasn't sure she had made any headway at all.

Dr. Bradley blinked and met her eyes. “Because he finances the kind of research I want to do,” he said. Then his eyes narrowed. “And if you try that again, I'll have to tell Mr. Wilson here to incapacitate you.”

The guard raised his eyebrows. “She causing trouble, Doc?”

“Not really,” Bradley replied as he wrote a note down on his clipboard. Then he looked at Liz and added, “I encourage you not to skip any more meals. It will really be better for your health.”

Liz didn't reply. She did return his gaze, and maybe some of her anger showed through this time, because he swallowed and turned quickly to go. Even if she hadn't been able to affect his mind at all, she was pretty sure he had told her at least part of the truth. All he cared about was being able to do his type of research. It didn't matter to him what this meant for the subjects of his research.

Liz had just gotten to her feet after her cage door was locked when there was a choked-off cry from near Red's cage, and then a shout of alarm. Liz whirled around to see Red, reaching through the bars of his cage to hold Dr. Bradley against them. Her angle and the way he was facing made it difficult to see exactly what was going on, but it looked like Red was pressing something to the doctor's throat. “If you attack me,” Red said, his voice deadly, “I will kill him before I succumb to your stun guns. Stay back.”

The two guards who had come with Dr. Bradley had clearly not expected this kind of situation. They stepped back from Red's cage, though they did not take their hands off their weapons. Red, meanwhile, had maneuvered Bradley such that he could look him in the eyes, while still maintaining a headlock with one arm and the object (maybe a pen, Liz thought) at his neck. She could hear the doctor's panicked breathing. She wondered how much success Red was having at shoving past Bradley's mental shield – since that was the only thing she could think for him to be doing.

_What the hell does he think he's doing?_ It was David, and Liz guessed he was asking everyone, not just her. _Is he trying to get himself killed?_

_He's trying to gather information_ , said Albert. _Leverage._

That was plausible, Liz thought, as she gripped the bars of her cage and watched. But she was afraid there was more to it than that. If he was out for vengeance, or if this was in some way about protecting her, then she might have reason to worry about his control.

A few seconds later, they all heard the sound of the metal door being opened, and six more guards poured in at a run. Frank Vandenberg followed. “What the hell is going on?” the man shouted.

“He says he'll kill the doctor if we move in on him,” Wilson reported, glancing from his boss to Red anxiously.

“I see.” Liz half-expected Vandenberg to order his men to attack anyway, not sparing Bradley from Red's wrath, but the man merely stood at a short distance from the cage, regarding Red with wary interest.

Red still hadn't released Dr. Bradley, but now his cage was surrounded. Each guard had his weapon drawn. And now it was possible for at least one of them to reach him without him seeing in time. Just when Liz was about to yell for Red to look out, he pushed the doctor away from him, tossed the pen out of his cage, and took a step back. There was a hard smile on his face and his hands were raised. One of the guards caught Dr. Bradley, who was gasping and holding his hand to his neck.

“Bring him down,” ordered Vandenberg, “but don't damage him permanently.”

Liz watched in dismay as two guards struck Red with the high voltage of their cattle prods. He convulsed without a sound several times, then fell to the ground. They didn't stop until he was clearly unconscious.

The Collector cast an eye over the rest of his collection and then left with the guards and Dr. Bradley. Bradley leaned heavily on Wilson as they left. Liz heard Vandenberg ask him what Red had gotten out of him, and she took a certain amount of pleasure in his raspy-voiced response that he wasn't sure.

Silence fell in the warehouse after the humans had all left. Then Liz, who was still staring at Red's twitching form, heard Terrance let out a sigh. “Your friend Raymond is scary, Elizabeth.”

Liz nodded and finally turned away. She thought about the time when she herself had threatened Red's life with a pen, and quashed a laugh that would have sounded hysterical. Apparently that was one of their weapons of choice, the two of them.

_So, uh, what did you guys mean, he was gathering information?_ Terrance asked then. _Can we take stuff out of people's minds, or something?_

_Not exactly_ , Anna Marie answered, when it became obvious that Liz wasn't going to speak up. She gave a brief description of the kind of hypnosis that dragons could use, and added that Red must have been forcing Dr. Bradley to divulge the information he wanted without speaking out loud, which was very difficult to manage. _I would like to know what he got out of the doctor_ , she concluded. _I can only assume it was worth the pain he knew he would be forced to endure as a result._

That, Liz knew for certain. She knew Red well enough to know he had calculated the risk and the potential reward before he took this action. But now he was unconscious, and she couldn't help him … and he couldn't help her. It was absurd, but she felt almost abandoned.

Liz sat down in the corner of her cage farthest away from where Red lay on the floor. She swiped irritably at a tear on her cheek and sniffed. It wasn't as if Red could have done anything directly to stop what might happen tomorrow, anyway. It was up to her to find a way to fight.

When the lights went off a little while later, Red still hadn't woken up. She had watched him closely enough to know he was still breathing, but that was it. She took in a slow, deep breath. There was very little chance she would actually sleep tonight, but she needed to try. And she had already decided to start out the day tomorrow in dragon form, since she had concluded it gave her the best chance of resisting for as long as possible. So with that in mind, she moved to the center of her cage and transformed.

To her surprise, she slept what had to have been several hours without any trouble at all. Then she came awake with a gasp from a nightmare that she mercifully forgot as soon as consciousness returned. It was nearly silent in the warehouse, other than the sounds of five sleeping dragons. Liz saw the huge shape of Red in dragon form in the cage next to her. She was glad he had been able to transform – that must mean he wasn't too badly hurt.

But now that she was awake, Liz was fairly certain she would not be getting any more sleep that night. She wished fervently that she'd been able to come up with a better plan for tomorrow than, “Stay in dragon form and hope they aren't able to manipulate you into transforming once they shoot you up with the drug that, by the way, will make you a mindless animal in heat.” But she wasn't brave enough or foolish enough to injure herself – or at least desperation hadn't pushed her to that, yet. There was still time.

And the time passed – both far too slowly and much too quickly. Liz's eyes stayed open most of the time, though her exhaustion grew. There was no way out of this that she could see. Even if she injured herself on purpose, it would probably be pointless; they had probably separated out a form of the usual drug that would force her to return to human form – and then they could see to her injury while they bred her as they wanted. She didn't need to be mobile.

The sound of the warehouse door opening jerked Liz out of the light doze she'd fallen into, early the next morning. As soon as she realized the night was over, adrenaline flooded through her. She stood up as much as possible in the confined space, her gaze fixed on the door.

But to her intense relief, nothing seemed different from the usual morning routine. The guards seemed mildly perplexed to find most of their charges in dragon form, but merely requested they change back if they wished to take their morning showers. Liz examined all of the personnel present first. There wasn't an unusually high number of scientists or guards. Rochelle wasn't there, but that wasn't too strange. She transformed to her human shape and walked to the showers with Anna Marie.

_I guess I was wrong about today_ , she told the older woman while they were on the way.

_It would appear so_ , Anna Marie said with a small smile. _Which is good, because I wasn't able to think of any way for either of us to avoid being drugged._

Liz confessed that she hadn't, either. But now they would have more time to consider the problem, at least.

Breakfast was the usual affair: adequate and filling. She was pleased to be able to eat most of it. If Dr. Bradley had been there, she thought wryly, he would have been pleased as well. During the meal she asked Red privately how he was doing, and he told her he was fine. She hadn't noticed any lingering effects in how he moved or looked from his punishment last night, either.

It was only after the breakfast dishes had been cleared away that Liz discovered she had been tricked. She and the others were expecting their usual morning blood draw. And indeed, each dragon had their own doctor and guards as normal, except Liz suddenly realized, as her cage door was being opened, that there were three guards instead of the usual one. Rochelle was there, but she was hanging back. It was Dennis and Burt who came in with the guards. And Burt was holding a full syringe instead of an empty vial.

“No!” Liz stood up, but before she could even start to transform, the guards had her face pressed against the bars of the cage, her arms forced behind her back, and a cattle prod pressed against her neck. In panic, Liz struggled against their grip until the guard with the weapon turned it on, just for a second. The shock was enough to immobilize her for long enough that she felt the needle pierce her arm.

As soon as she could, Liz jerked her arms out of the guards' grip and stepped back. She tried to maintain her fury at the men who had forced her into this situation, but she was trembling. They had done it. She hadn't been able to stop it. Now there was nothing to do but wait, in an agony of suspense, for her rational mind to be buried under the all-consuming need to find a mate. The doctors and guards hadn't left her cage; maybe they were waiting for some kind of reaction. Maybe they were supposed to knock her out as soon as they saw any effects. She backed away to the far side of her cage. They would drag her out soon enough, she was sure, but in the meantime she wanted to stand with something at her back.

All eyes were on her, she could tell, though she was studiously not looking at anyone. She tried to breathe normally. Her own breaths and the pounding of her heart were all she could hear. Then abruptly she realized her breaths sounded much more strained than usual – and they felt that way, too. She didn't seem to be getting any air. Her throat felt terribly constricted. She was wheezing, and the sound was getting more and more high-pitched. She staggered, and her vision started to darken. She couldn't breathe. What was this? She looked down at her arms. They were rapidly turning pink and blotchy, especially her left one where the shot had been given.

“For God's sake, someone help her!” His voice. She had never heard it sound quite so terrified before. “Can't you see she's going into anaphylactic shock?”

Liz's grip on the bars of her cage loosened as she fought to breathe and her head swam, but just before she hit the ground someone caught her and lowered her the rest of the way with care. They turned her over. Rochelle was here, Liz saw, but she turned away to shout something about a stretcher over her shoulder.

Being on her back did not make it any easier to draw air into her lungs. In fact, it felt worse. Liz tried to push herself up, but Rochelle and the other doctor held her down gently but firmly. “Try to hold still,” Rochelle said to her as she tilted her chin up. “We're going to get you help as soon as we can.”

Liz saw the fear in her expression. Then her vision blurred further and everything started to fade again. Her desperate, rapid breaths seemed to be decreasing in effectiveness, and the sensation was terrifying. It was like she was drowning, or like something tremendously heavy was on her chest. She tried to cough, to clear whatever was blocking her airway, but nothing happened. Finally, just as some other people arrived in her shrinking field of vision, she passed out.

~  
When she opened her eyes, Liz found herself lying on a hospital bed, surrounded by hospital equipment and a hanging plastic curtain. There was an IV in her right arm, and an oxygen line in her nose. She was hooked up to a heart monitor. She was also, she noted wearily, strapped down at the wrists and ankles. Of course.

The curtain was pushed aside a moment later, and Rochelle came in. She smiled slightly upon seeing Liz with her eyes open. “You're awake. How are you feeling?”

Liz took an experimental breath, and started coughing right away. Thankfully the fit didn't last long, but it did reveal how sore she felt, and how raw her throat was. “I've been better,” she said hoarsely, after she caught her breath. “Thirsty.”

The woman held a cup with a straw to Liz's mouth after raising the head of the bed slightly for her. Liz drank it dry and sighed. “What happened?”

“You had a severe allergic reaction to the drug that was supposed to induce--” She stopped. “You know. Anyway, it took a little longer than I would have liked to get you to our medical facilities, so by the time we administered the epinephrine, you had already been unconscious and not breathing for over a minute. We had to intubate for a short while. But after the epinephrine took effect, you started to breathe again and your airways cleared, and we've been giving you plenty of IV fluids to flush the drug out of your system. And you seem to have recovered well.”

Liz blinked slowly, as the memories surrounding her forced injection with the drug returned. “How long have I been out?” she asked. Her throat was still raw. She hoped Red at least had been able to tell she was on the mend.

Rochelle looked at her watch. “It's been about five hours since the initial onset of anaphylaxis,” she said. “I'm going to keep you here at least one more hour for observation.”

At that Liz smiled wryly. “Observation. Right.”

Rochelle had the grace to look embarrassed. “Medical observation, that is,” she clarified. She busied herself checking Liz's IV for a few minutes after that. Then she spoke again, not meeting her patient's eyes. “I-- I guess you should also know that I persuaded Mr. Vandenberg you aren't stable enough for laparoscopic surgery today. Which is true. It would put you at increased risk of cardiac arrest. The, uh, surgical procedure is his backup plan, in case the drug to induce estrus doesn't work in either of … in either you or the other woman.”

The implications of her statement didn't take long to dawn on Liz. Her outrage at this latest horror made it almost impossible to hold back tears. Despite her best efforts, she felt one tear escape and roll down the side of her face. She did not, would not thank Rochelle for doing the absolute minimum to safeguard her wellbeing. She would not be grateful that the woman had just enough moral backbone to keep a prisoner's eggs from being harvested against her will.

But Rochelle didn't seem to be expecting gratitude. She straightened her white coat and said, “I have to go. You, uh, obviously could choose to break loose, but I don't recommend it. There are six guards very nearby.”

Liz had thought of this option already, and was not surprised to hear it had been anticipated. She just nodded, though, as the doctor pushed the curtain aside to go. Then, after she was sure she had her emotions back under control, she reached out for her mental sense of Red. It didn't take long to find him. _Red, I'm awake. Are you all right?_

His response was instantaneous. _Lizzie! I'm glad to hear from you. I'm just fine. Tell me about you._

_Tired, sore, but otherwise fine_ , she told him. _They're going to keep me here for another hour._

_It seems you had a very effective built-in defense against that drug_ , he observed after a moment. _It's unfortunate that we had no way of knowing about your allergy ahead of time._

_Yeah._ It certainly would have spared them all a lot of anxiety and pain, she thought. But at least this way she was sure to be granted a short reprieve from the next stage of the plan. _What's going on with everyone else?_ she asked. It would have to be afternoon by now, if she had been unconscious for five hours as Rochelle told her.

_Oh, the usual_ , Red replied. _Temporary paralysis, ill treatment, et cetera. This time our host, who's very put out by the delay you've caused in his schedule by the way, apparently wants his team to get x-rays of each of his captives. You can imagine that process is quite difficult and time-consuming._

_Wow. Yes, I can._ Even the most mobile of the x-ray machines Liz knew of were not likely to be easily maneuverable inside a cage that already contained a dragon. She supposed it was nice that she was exempt from this by virtue of being in the medical bay or whatever this place was – but then again, there was nothing preventing the doctors from getting her caught up on it later.

_Lizzie_ , Red said, and now his mental tone was serious, _I realize you no doubt have questions about my actions yesterday evening, and I will give you answers. I just ask that you be patient for a short while longer, until I've been able to confirm something that's only a guess right now. Perhaps by the time you're returned to the warehouse, I'll be ready to answer._

Liz sighed. _All right._ It wasn't as if she had any means to persuade him to do otherwise, and a promise of answers soon was more than she sometimes got.

_Thank you._ That seemed to be all, as far as their conversation went.

In spite of everything, Liz was just beginning to doze later when she heard multiple male voices, getting closer. She was quickly alert.

“So it's the hot one who's in here?”

The other voice scoffed. “Who else would it be, Jake? Didn't you hear that they were trying to get the bitch to go into heat?”

The plastic curtain was pushed aside, and Liz stared back at the two guards, once their eyes traveled over her body to her face. She willed herself to stay calm. Her pulse on the heart monitor began to speed up.

“I guess it didn't work, though,” the one who had criticized Jake said. He leered. “Too bad. I wouldn't mind reaping the benefits.”

Liz raised an eyebrow. “You're not my type,” she said coldly.

“Oh, yeah?” The guy scoffed again. “I was pretty sure your 'type' was any man with a pulse, once they hit you with that drug.” He took a step closer. “Or any of your kind, I guess.”

“Eddie, man, what are you doing?” Jake said, glancing over his shoulder. “You're going to get us in trouble.”

Liz almost hoped Eddie would keep coming closer. She was ready to transform at a moment's notice; she could feel the energy of her dragon form boiling under the surface. No matter how fast his reflexes were to reach for his weapon, she was sure she could be faster. “Yeah, Eddie,” she said, “are you just going to stand there, or what?”

The guard hesitated for long enough to give Jake a scornful look over his shoulder. Then, just as he took another step closer, all of them heard an angry voice from someone approaching rapidly. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Eddie jumped and backed away quickly. “Uh, just checking on the-- the subject, Dr. Cross,” he said.

“I'm sure,” Rochelle said, voice dripping with skepticism. “You'd better hope your visit hasn't put undue stress on the subject, because if it has, she might relapse, and that will be on you.”

Eddie and Jack disappeared shortly after that, and Liz leaned back with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her heartbeat returning to normal.

“Are you okay?” Rochelle asked, after a moment.

Liz opened her eyes. “If you mean, am I relapsing, then no, I don't think so,” she replied. She wasn't sure whether Rochelle's threat to the guards was even a real risk, but regardless, she felt fine, physically. Her voice hardened. “If you're asking if I'm okay with being strapped into a hospital bed, after a failed attempt to use me as a brood mare, and then being harassed by a couple of asshole guards who wanted to take advantage of my perceived helplessness, then the answer to that is no, too.”

Rochelle looked down. “Yeah. I, uh, imagine you wouldn't be.”

There was a longer, more awkward pause. Then Liz asked how much longer she'd have to be here, and Rochelle informed her it would be about another half hour. She left again soon after, but she assured Liz she would be nearby enough to know if the guards tried anything. Liz had merely nodded. She had already decided, if those men tried anything again, she wasn't going to wait for Rochelle to arrive to stop them. She would stop them herself.

But the rest of her time in the medical facility passed without incident. The guards that showed up after Rochelle gave her another check-up were two other men, not Jack and Eddie. Liz was pleased to find herself steady on her feet as they escorted her back to the warehouse. She also noted that this part of the facility was very close to the bathroom and shower area.

When she entered the warehouse, she saw that her fellow dragons were all still lying on the floors of their cages, still paralyzed and surrounded by scientists busy with their tasks. Vandenberg was nowhere to be seen, which was a relief.

_Hey, you're back_ , said Terrance, as her cage door was locked behind her. _You all right?_

Liz knew he wasn't going to be able to see her well from his angle, but she stood as close to him as she could anyway. _Yeah, I'm doing fine now_ , she replied. The silver dragon didn't, of course, make any outward sign that he had heard, but Terrance told her he was happy to hear it. He also said he was almost jealous that her hospitalization meant she was currently free from interference by any scientists, but he realized the irony in that statement. Liz smiled and said she appreciated that.

When Liz looked around at all of the humans present, she noticed that Dr. Bradley was not among them. This reminded her that Red had promised to tell her what he'd learned from the man. She was about to ask him about it when Burt arrived in front of her cage, clearing his throat and holding a syringe almost apologetically.

“Really?” Liz said. She didn't care that she sounded angry, even when the guards stepped forward to flank the young doctor in response.

“It's-- it's a smaller dose than usual,” Burt said, “so it should wear off at about the same time as for the others. Mr. Vandenberg just wants to be sure we get at least some of the x-rays we need, on schedule.”

There was no point in making this take any longer. Liz allowed them to administer the shot, and prepared herself for the transformation as usual.

A few minutes later, as she lay there idly watching Burt, Dennis, and another guy she didn't recognize wrestle an x-ray machine into the best positions they could manage around her, Liz heard from Red. _Lizzie, I have some news_ , he said without preamble. _The man I interrogated yesterday has proved even more useful than I'd hoped._

_Really? How so?_ Liz wished she could turn to look at him.

_After I got past his defenses, the good Doctor Bradley told me quite a few interesting things. Among those were how Ambrose recruited him, and then how Vandenberg made contact some time ago. But more importantly, he told me quite a few details about this operation, including its location. That was when I told him to tell Vandenberg he wasn't going to be able to work directly with the prisoners anymore due to the trauma of being attacked the way he was, and sent him home._

Liz thought she could see where this was going, but there were also some problems that might extinguish her hope before it really started to grow. _And Vandenberg really just let the guy leave, knowing he'd been compromised by you in some way?_

_No, I imagine he took some persuading_ , Red acknowledged. _But I made sure Dr. Bradley would be very persuasive. He's terrified of one of us actually managing to get something useful out of him now, you see. That's why he can't come back to work with us._

_Still_ , Liz pressed, _how can you be sure Vandenberg bought it?_

_I wasn't, until just about ten minutes ago. That's when our mutual acquaintance Leah contacted me and told me she had set things in motion as I asked._ His tone was very self-satisfied.

She might have choked just then, if she could have. That was not what she had been expecting to hear. _Wait a minute. Are you saying you not only coached Dr. Bradley on how to convince Vandenberg to let him leave, but you also got him to reach out to Leah Weston?_

_That's exactly what I'm saying_ , Red answered. _Rescue is on the way, Lizzie. We have only to wait._

Her rush of joy and relief at this news changed into anxiety very quickly. How close was “on the way”? Because she and Red and the others were trapped in their dragon forms right now, and would be for at least another hour.

_I realize the timing is inconvenient_ , Red was continuing, _but I told Leah to wait a little while before she passed along the tip. Also it will take some time for the FBI task force to be assembled, and we're quite a number of miles outside of the city._

_Okay_ , Liz said. That helped somewhat. _But you're still awfully calm about the possibility that a whole bunch of FBI agents – including our team – might find us while we're stuck like this._

Red just said, _If worst comes to worst, we can always rely on the human need to explain away things they don't understand, as well as our ability to help persuade them that they didn't see six mythical creatures in cages when they raided this warehouse. After all, we each will have to be debriefed._

Liz sighed. She still wasn't confident that would take care of it, but she also really, really wanted to get out of this place. _Will you tell the others?_

_Soon_ , he said.

Something else occurred to her a few seconds later. _Did Leah say anything about whether Dembe is all right?_ she asked.

_I told her to find him if she can_ , Red replied. He paused. _But I don't know that she'll get back to me about whether or not she succeeds. She's barely within range._

_I see._ Liz fell silent, as the x-ray machine was wheeled awkwardly to the other side of the cage. She had tuned out the voices of the humans around her during her conversation with Red, but now she had to listen to them again. It was even more annoying than usual not to be able to move or do anything about this humiliation, now that she knew rescue was on its way soon.  
~


	8. Chapter 8

~  
She was included when Red decided it was time to tell the others. His announcement was calm and to the point, but of course it produced the opposite of calm in its hearers. Terrance was the most unreservedly happy, but even he was nervous about what it would mean if a large number of law enforcement officers saw them in their current forms. David, on the other extreme, was so furious at Red for deciding he was going to do this without consulting the rest of them first that he did nothing but yell at him to this effect.

_Really, David – take a moment to breathe_ , said Anna Marie, when her nephew paused his diatribe. But then she voiced her own displeasure to Red on the same subject. _This does affect all of us, though, Raymond, as David was saying. Can't you tell your friends to wait until we're not at the mercy of this drug?_

_I did caution Leah not too move too quickly_ , Red assured them, _but I felt it was unwise to wait too long. Vandenberg strikes me as a rather paranoid fellow, and just the knowledge that one of his employees is out of his direct supervision might push him to do something drastic. He may even have had Dr. Bradley under surveillance._

David exploded again. _Well, that's just great! So you used him to contact the FBI, and now you're saying he's going to tip off Vandenberg's men to your plan? What the hell point was all of this?!_

_He didn't betray my plan_ , replied Red in irritation. _I saw to that when I spoke to him, and if you don't believe I made absolutely certain, then you're even more of an idiot than you seem. But even so, there is a risk that anything innocent Dr. Bradley does will be reported back to Vandenberg, who will see it as some kind of hint that something is wrong. He's already been running a risk, employing such a large group of people and thereby expecting this secret to stay secret for long. I'm sure he knows that. And I'd rather get out of here before the Collector decides he needs to move his collection or dispose of it, wouldn't you?_

There was a short period of silence following this pronouncement. Then Albert muttered, _It's freakishly good luck for Frank that the secret hasn't been spilled before now, when you think about it._

Liz thought about what might happen to them if they were in the clutches of someone who didn't see themselves as the defender of dragonkind, and felt suddenly cold. _Since he wants us alive, it's good luck for us in some ways, too._

Terrance swore. _Thanks for that, Elizabeth_ , he said grimly. _Now I've got something else I hadn't thought about before to be worried about._

_Welcome to your new life, kid_ , put in David, but not without a hint of compassion.

When Red reported that the task force was about fifteen minutes out, the doctors were only barely beginning to wrap up their duties for the session. He told Liz privately that Dembe was among those bearing down on the warehouse and its surrounding facilities, and then announced that he had done his best to urge caution and a lack of haste to his people, in regard to entering the warehouse. Liz was sure she wasn't the only one who cast out her own mental awareness, and was shocked at the sheer number of people who were close and getting closer. She recognized Ressler's mind among them.

It was definitely a good thing that none of the subjects had their pulses checked today, Liz reflected. She was sure none of them were at their normal resting rate – or what passed for normal while being examined by scientists while locked in a cage, anyway. But at last, at what seemed an agonizingly slow pace, the doctors finished up and began to exit the cages. Dennis grumbled something about how they had so much left to do for “their specimen”, but tossed a guilty look over his shoulder at Liz as he said it. He had been a participant in forcing her to receive the injection this morning – seemingly unwilling, but a participant, nonetheless.

Finally, the warehouse was empty of humans. _How close are they now?_ Liz asked. She still was unable to transform, though she was tiring herself out by trying every few seconds.

_They're on the premises_ , was Red's tense response.

It was far too soon after this that they all started to hear sounds of shouting, guns being fired, and general chaos. Albert returned to his human form a few tense minutes later, followed by Red. Then David and Anna Marie joined them, and then Terrance.

_Oh, God_ , said Liz. She still couldn't move. They had given her the drug too recently. It wasn't going to wear off in time.

“This isn't going to work,” David hissed. “If she's still in dragon form, and we're all in the same kind of cages, they're going to put two and two together – especially if she transforms in front of them.”

_You'd better not be blaming me_ , Liz snapped, as she once again futilely tried to make the shift.

He scoffed and shook his head. “Obviously not! But it's--”

He was cut off by the sound of the lock on the outside of the warehouse door rattling. With a surge of panic, Liz made yet another attempt to transform, but nothing happened. She swore and reached out to see who it was outside. It was Ressler, of course. With someone she recognized quickly as Dembe. There was no one else with them right now, but she knew that wouldn't last long.

The door opened a few seconds later. Liz couldn't turn her head to see, but she heard Red call out to Dembe in unadulterated happiness, followed by, “And Agent Ressler! Good of you to come along as well.”

“Reddington, what the hell is going on here? Where's Agent Keen?” Ressler paused, and she heard him come closer. “And what the hell is that?!”

There it was. She could move now – now that Ressler had obviously seen her. Cringing inwardly, Liz shut her eyes and changed as fast as she could. When she opened them, her partner was standing in front of her cage, an utterly dumbfounded expression on his face.

Slowly, Liz got to her feet. “Ressler...” She wasn't even sure what she had started to say.

“Did I just see that?” he demanded. “Was that you, just a second ago, a--?”

“There'll be time for questions and explanations later, Donald,” Red interrupted. He put his arms through the bars meaningfully. “Perhaps you'd like to release us first?”

Dembe had already been examining the mechanism of the lock on Red's cage this whole time. “If we can't find the keys quickly, we just need a wrench, applied right here,” he said, pointing to a spot Liz couldn't really see from her angle.

Ressler tore his gaze away from Liz after another long moment. “Right. I'll call for some backup, and we'll get all of you out of here,” he said, turning around to look at the rest of the captives. “I'm Special Agent Ressler with the FBI. Does anyone need medical attention?”

The next hour passed in a flurry of activity: Vandenberg and his people were loaded into multiple transport vans to be taken back to the Post Office, each of the former captives were given a check-up by the EMTs on scene, Albert was taken to the hospital as a precaution, and large quantities of materials were gathered as evidence to be examined by the FBI as soon as possible. As they all stood outside in the afternoon sun, Anna Marie warned Red and Liz that these materials could not be left in the FBI's possession long enough for any detailed reading to be done, since their scientists would then have solid evidence of the existence of dragons. Red assured her, as well as David and Terrance, that his people would see to it that anything revealing disappeared before it reached the Post Office. As he said this, one of the men wearing an FBI jacket who was carrying a box of files out of a building caught Liz's eye. He winked, nodded, and kept going.

“What about your partner? Agent Ressler?” Terrance asked, quietly enough that Liz thought the agent standing near all the rescued dragons couldn't hear. But at her look, he switched to telepathy. _He saw you before you changed. There's no way that's not going to be a problem._

_It will be, if she doesn't take care of it_ , David said. He glared at Liz.

Liz met the man's eyes. _I'll take care of him_ , she said firmly, even as her heart sank at the prospect of messing with Ressler's head yet again. _You don't have to worry._

Before any of them could speak further, Director Cooper and Samar walked over to them. Cooper introduced himself and then said, “We'd like to debrief each of you before you return to your homes, if you're up for it. We'll also be speaking to Mr. Reinhardt in the hospital as soon as he's rested enough.”

The four of them looked at each other very briefly. _Just give minimal details on the actual medical procedures that were done_ , Red advised. _The FBI already knows that the Collector had his own ideas of what was genetically interesting and worth acquiring, so they'll believe we fit into that easily enough, without us having to explain why._

Unsurprisingly, Liz wasn't required to be debriefed on-site, and neither was Red. In fact, Cooper wanted them back at the Post Office ASAP. Red consented to this, but stated that he would not be going anywhere else until he had retrieved a change of clothes. “I'll see you at the office, Lizzie,” he said, before leaving the scene with Dembe.

Cooper, as usual, was obviously annoyed at how Red ignored his authority, but he was used to it enough by now that he just watched the two men leave with a frown. Then he looked at someone over Liz's shoulder. “Agent Ressler can drive you when you're ready, Agent Keen.”

Liz met Ressler's eyes for a second and then looked away, clearing her throat. “I'll be right there, sir,” she said. “I just want to say goodbye to someone first.”

Without waiting to see how Ressler reacted, she walked over to Terrance, who was about to leave with another agent. “Terrance,” she called out.

The dragon turned, and smiled when he saw her. “Hey. Uh, I guess we're all going our separate ways now, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. But, um,” she paused, and then went on, “if you ever need anything, you can call the FBI switchboard and ask for me. It'll get through to me eventually.”

“Thanks,” he said, smiling even more widely. “It's nice to know I have a friend in law enforcement.”

Laughing, Liz shook his hand, wished him luck, and then resolutely headed back to where Ressler was waiting by the car. She was going to be alone with him, for the entire drive back to the office. And it wasn't a short drive, based on what she'd learned about the location of this place.

Ressler didn't speak until they had left the warehouse and its surroundings behind. Liz sure wasn't going to start this conversation, so she occupied herself with looking out the window, enjoying the fact that she could see the sky after nearly a week trapped inside.

Finally, her partner broke the silence. He glanced at her from the driver's seat. “Are you all right? Vandenberg's people didn't-- cause any permanent harm?”

“No, I'm okay,” Liz replied. She looked down at her lap. “Or I will be, anyway.”

He nodded. “That's good. We found the place where Vandenberg was keeping his other captives, by the way, and they're all okay, too.” There was another pause. With his eyes on the road, he said, “Are we going to talk about what I saw when Dembe and I first got inside the warehouse?”

“What is it that you think you saw?”

Scoffing, Ressler stared at her before returning his gaze to the road. “I don't think I saw anything, Liz,” he said. “I know I saw a dragon in the cage next to Reddington – and then a few seconds later, that dragon shrank down and it was you in that cage.”

“A dragon?” Liz repeated, raising her eyebrows. “Ressler, that doesn't make any sense.”

“No, it doesn't,” Ressler agreed, but his tone was hard. “So why don't you explain it to me? Explain how you can be a huge, copper-colored dragon one second, and then...” He swallowed, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. “And then be a human the next second.”

She didn't answer. She supposed she should hypnotize him now, while they were alone – but he was driving. That would probably be dangerous. And besides, she still hated the idea. It wasn't as if he had pried into her business. He had just been unlucky enough to be the one who found her, before the damn drug wore off.

“And what am I supposed to think, when I see six people in those gigantic cages – each one big enough to hold the creature that I saw in yours – and when I know you were all captured by a guy who gets his thrills from collecting rare things?” Ressler gave a harsh laugh. “Reddington's like you, isn't he? And the rest of them, too. That's why the Collector went after you.”

“I don't know why he went after me. Maybe he found out we were trying to track him down,” Liz tried, hoping she sounded less desperate than she felt.

“Bullshit,” Ressler said. “When those men surrounded us both outside Jackie Brown's apartment, they took you and left me. And they didn't take Dembe when they took Reddington, for that matter.”

He wasn't going to be dissuaded. Of course not.

“You know what bothers me the most about all of this?” Ressler shot her another glance, his jaw clenched. “It's not that you apparently have the ability to change into an animal I didn't think existed outside of stories, though I'm definitely not just going to accept that with no problem. It's--” He exhaled and shook his head. “I mean, I'm not in the least bit surprised that Reddington never bothered to tell any of us about this. That bastard can't live without his mysteries and secrets. But I thought after everything that's happened in the past year, you and I were done with the big secrets.”

For a moment, Liz's guilt was too great for her to be able to speak. But then anger came rushing in, pushing the guilt aside. “That's interesting that you'd say that, because I was pretty sure you wouldn't have told me about the drugs if I hadn't found out myself.”

He flushed. She'd hit a nerve, of course, but before he could give his no doubt angry reply, she pressed on. “And even aside from that, let me ask you something: say I told you about this. Say I took you aside and just told you, 'Hey, Ressler, you know how you accidentally discovered that Reddington and I can talk telepathically? Well, that's because we both happen to be part-dragon. That means we can also actually change into dragons. Crazy, huh?' What would you have said?”

When he didn't say anything right away, she scoffed and said, “You would have thought I was completely crazy, and no wonder. It is crazy. It's insane, and it's real, and I can't tell anyone about it. Remember what I said about not wanting government scientists to dissect me to figure out how the telepathy thing works? That's even more true for … all of this.” She shivered then, looking down at the needle marks in the crook of her left arm.

Ressler didn't say anything, but now he looked thoughtful. They drove in silence for a few miles. It was getting dark. Liz suddenly realized she was quite hungry. She hadn't eaten in hours, aside from the energy bar the EMT had given her.

“Well, I hope you know I'm not going to tell anyone, government scientists or not, about what I saw,” Ressler said at last. He didn't sound angry now.

Liz thought of how he had covered for her all those times in that whole mess with Tom. She smiled sadly. “I know.”

“But you can't leave me hanging, either,” he added. “You guys are part-dragon? What the hell does that even mean?”

This was, Liz thought, what could be called a moment of truth. She either had to stop talking now, tell Ressler she couldn't say anymore, and hypnotize him later – or she had to tell him what risks he was incurring by knowing this and then, if he still wanted to hear it, tell him everything. And trust that she could convince Red not to take matters into his own hands later. She sighed. It still didn't seem like that hard of a decision to her, except that it wasn't just her secret to keep.

“Ressler,” she said, “I don't like keeping this secret from you. It would be really nice not to have to be so worried all the time about you knowing.”

He looked both resigned and frustrated. “But?”

“You already guessed this isn't just about me or Reddington,” she explained. “I don't have permission to-- to just ignore everyone else's wishes.”

“Then keep it as simple as you can, and don't tell me about anyone else,” Ressler said with a shrug. “I'm not asking for any life stories – just some kind of explanation to help me wrap my head around this.”

“Plus if I tell you, you'll be in danger,” Liz went on. She bit her lip and decided she might as well say it. “From Reddington, most likely, if not the others who were there in the warehouse.”

“What?!”

“They only let you go without a fuss because I promised I'd take care of it.”

His jaw dropped. “'Take care of it'? Liz, what--” She saw something pass across his face, and then he pulled over to the side of the road abruptly. Then, very slowly, he killed the engine and took his hands off the steering wheel. “Okay. So. Are you supposed to kill me?”

“Wh-- No!” Liz faced him, her eyes wide. “Ressler, no, that's not what I meant at all! God.” She put her head in her hands. He had seen what she was, and now she'd told him just enough to make him afraid of her. “I'm not that much of a monster,” she whispered. The image of his blank face after she had hypnotized him last time rose to her mind, and she cringed.

“Then I need you to explain what kind of danger you're talking about. Right now.”

With another sigh, Liz took her hands away from her face and told him about that draconic gift, and how it was most often used in connection with the secret of the existence of dragons. She could see the horror warring with disbelief in his expression. “And you – and Reddington, and the others – you can all do this? Any time, to anyone.”

“To anyone who isn't part-dragon,” Liz said quietly with a nod. “If I don't do it to you, then the secret isn't safe. You could let it slip by accident. This would make sure you couldn't, even if you wanted to.”

“Wait a minute.” Ressler narrowed his eyes. “My God, Liz,” and there was the betrayal, “you've done this to me already, haven't you? You made me not even able to talk about your telepathy to anyone else! I guess you couldn't just trust me when I promised not to tell.”

“It was either that or let Red do it!” Liz cried. She had to look away, and her voice dropped to nearly inaudible once more. “At least if I did it, I could let you still know what you'd found out, even if you couldn't talk about it.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” Ressler shot back. “That's very generous of you to leave more of my brain intact than your pal Reddington would have!”

This was as awful as Liz had feared it would be. She stared at her hands. The car was stopped. If she acted quickly and decisively, she could hypnotize him right now. She could make him forget about this whole argument, her betrayal, and seeing her as a dragon. It would be easier than this, surely, and less painful. And there was still Ressler's safety to consider, whether or not he saw that. Maybe it was the kinder thing to do, in the long run.

Ressler took a breath, and his voice was, if not less angry, at least not as loud when he spoke again. “Look, you've been through a lot in the past couple of days. Let's just … go back to the office. We'll talk about this later.”

“The facts won't change later,” she said, but she was feeling the last several days' trauma starting to hit. She was exhausted, and she could tell it would be a while before that changed, even if she was able to sleep the next couple of nights. Which she doubted. At any rate, she didn't have the strength to hypnotize her friend right now … even though she might be damning him, leaving him up to Red's interference by letting him be.

Ressler started the car again and got back onto the road. Despite the tenseness of the atmosphere in the car, which hadn't really abated, Liz must have dropped off to sleep shortly afterward because when Ressler's phone rang, the sound brought her awake with such a violent shock that she narrowly avoided cracking her head on the side of the car. Ressler looked at her in concern as he answered the phone. “Ressler. Yes, sir, we're getting close,” he said. He paused. “Yeah, she's all right. Tired.”

Liz took deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. She wasn't a prisoner, a test subject anymore. Embarrassed that Ressler had been witness to this overreaction, she rubbed her hands across her face and leaned back in her seat as her partner listened to whatever Cooper was telling him.

“All right, sir. I'll ask her, and we should be there in less than fifteen minutes.” Ressler hung up, and then turned to look at her again. “You okay?”

She smiled wryly. “I'm the same as I was when you last asked me that, Ressler. What did Cooper want?”

“He was just letting me know that it looks like certain key pieces of evidence from the scene look to have gone missing somewhere between there and the office,” said Ressler. He scratched his chin. “This evidence seems limited to almost all of the test results concerning all of the procedures you and the other five were subjected to – even though the agent who found them in the first place swears he never let those papers out of FBI hands. You know anything about that?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” Liz replied. She couldn't help the relief she felt at the confirmation that Red's people had succeeded in taking that evidence away from prying eyes.

“Ah. Another thing I shouldn't know.” Any amusement faded from his face and his tone, replaced again by anger and hurt.

“They would do terrible things to us, Ressler,” she said after a moment. “Worse, even, than everything Vandenberg's people did.” Her voice cracked. She thought of how humiliating it had been to be examined like a rare animal in a trap. She thought of Red, electrocuted into unconsciousness. She thought of Albert, tortured for years. She thought of what they had almost done to her. And then she allowed herself, as she hadn't before, to imagine what the next year of her life would have been like if they had succeeded. That, it turned out, was a mistake.

She tasted acid at the back of her throat. “Stop. Pull over,” she gasped.

Ressler glanced at her in alarm but obeyed. As soon as the car stopped, Liz flung open her door, staggered out halfway down into the ditch by the side of the road, bent over, and threw up. There was almost nothing in her stomach, but she retched until the roiling passed.

Ressler had come around to stand behind her at some point during this interval. When she finally stopped, he helped her stand up and handed her a water bottle.

“Thanks,” she muttered, breathing heavily. She rinsed out her mouth, cleaned off her face, and then took several sips of the water. It didn't unsettle her stomach any further.

“You all right to keep going?” he asked after another few seconds.

Liz nodded. “I think so.” But when she went to take a step toward the car, she stumbled and would have fallen if Ressler hadn't been there to catch her arm. The world spun, then righted itself.

“Okay, now you're starting to worry me, Keen,” said Ressler. He supported her the rest of the way to the car, opened the door for her, and watched as she sat down.

“It's not a big deal,” Liz said, resting her head against the headrest. Through half-closed eyes, she saw Ressler's skeptical expression. “Seriously. I-- I just haven't really eaten anything since this morning,” she admitted. “I'm sure it's mostly just low blood sugar.” And the aftereffects of trauma, she didn't add. She took another drink from the water bottle.

“Well, I think there should be some snack bars in the back at least,” he replied, and busied himself looking for them. Liz closed her eyes, but didn't go back to sleep. She opened them again when Ressler announced he'd found them.

From the back seat, he walked around to her door with two granola bars, and a blanket she recognized as one from a first aid kit. She raised her eyebrows. “I'm not cold.”

“Don't take it if you don't want it,” he said with a shrug, holding the items out to her.

She frowned and took all of them, wrapping the blanket around herself before she buckled her seatbelt. Ressler walked back around to the driver's seat, and Liz closed her door and started in on the granola bars. Something with so much sugar was probably not the best thing to eat right after throwing up, but she was hungry enough not to care.

They drove in silence for a while. Liz felt better physically, but she was still thinking about how to deal with this situation in a way that kept Ressler free from being harassed by other dragons, without messing with his mind again. An idea was taking shape.

Before she could broach the topic once more, Ressler cleared his throat and said, “We're almost there. I'd appreciate knowing if you've decided my fate.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but he was serious.

“All the dragons I've ever met – under normal circumstances anyway – have humans around them who know what they are and aren't brainwashed,” Liz said. She noted the way he reacted to her use of both the words 'normal' and 'humans' especially, but kept going. “So if you want to hear it, I'll give you the whole story sometime soon, and I'll make Reddington see the benefits of having you in the know.”

He didn't answer right away. When he did, he sounded strange. “So I'd be, what? Part of your organization, like Reddington's people are for him?”

“I don't have an organization,” Liz said – though she wondered if that was a true statement. “Besides the Bureau, anyway.”

“Uh huh.” He was unconvinced.

Liz took another gulp of water while she organized her thoughts. It was true that what she was referring to were situations in which humans were either employed by or otherwise in positions where the dragon was their superior. That was apparently a common occurrence. The idea of Ressler becoming the first member of her entourage was bizarre. It made her feel distinctly less normal. She saw no reason that she had to live like some kind of weird pseudo-royalty or crime boss, just because of her genetic heritage. “I just want to be able to keep doing my job, working with you, and not have any of this … stuff get in the way,” she said at last.

Ressler nodded. “Then I guess we'll see how it goes.”  
~


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little bit of a shorter chapter than usual, but I felt like the last section did need to be broken up into two parts.

~  
They arrived at the Post Office a few minutes later. Liz left the blanket in the car, and tried not to notice the inquiring gazes of her colleagues as she walked quickly to her office to get the change of clothes she had there. It was a definite relief to get out of the scrubs that had been her uniform for the last several days. She put them in a plastic bag and shoved them in the garbage can in the office when she got back from the bathroom. Maybe they should be considered evidence, but she never wanted to look at them again. She almost left her office without noticing that her badge and gun were on her desk. With a small smile, she picked them up. She'd left her gun on the ground outside the apartment where she'd been taken, but she didn't know where the FBI had found her badge. Regardless, she was glad to have them both back.

When she got back downstairs, Liz was brought up short by the number of people who welcomed her back or told her they were glad she was back safely. By the time she made it over to where Cooper, Ressler, Samar, and Aram were waiting, she thought she had thanked or smiled at more than half of the people who worked here. Aram, who was the only one of the group who hadn't already seen her at the warehouse site, stood up from his computer and added his own heartfelt welcome.

“We won't keep you for too long, Agent Keen,” Cooper said, after reiterating his own happiness that she and the other victims had been found safely. “We just need to go over a few things, get your statement, and then you can go home and relax. And take tomorrow off, as well.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Liz. She glanced at the board that had contained all of the clues the team had gathered about the Collector, and barely concealed a start when she saw her face and Red's face grouped with the rest of the missing person photos. “Where is the Collector – Frank Vandenberg – now?”

Cooper informed her that he was in holding, and that he would be interrogated shortly. She was allowed to watch if she desired, but Liz wasn't sure whether she wanted to take her boss up on the offer. She had no interest in seeing Vandenberg ever again. On the other hand, there was no need for him to be able to see her, if she stayed out of the room – and she did want to know what he would have to say for himself. And if he would take his self-proclaimed role as a protector of dragons seriously enough not to say anything about them.

As Liz was about to hear the very preliminary analysis that had been begun of the evidence that had made it to the Post Office, Red swept into the building. Dembe, as usual, was right behind him. It was reassuring, somehow, to see Red back in his usual impeccably tailored suit and hat – another indication that everything was on its way back to normal. He hadn't, Liz thought wryly, received as warm of a welcome back as she had, but he obviously wasn't troubled by this.

The two of them, separately, spent the next half hour giving their statements. There was no need to confer all that much telepathically – just enough that their stories didn't contradict each other at all. As Red had said before the group separated back at the warehouse, the FBI already knew Vandenberg liked to select people he saw as genetically interesting, even if what interested him wasn't obvious. Liz just told them that Vandenberg had never bothered to tell any of his captives what made them worth being collected, though he had certainly had his employees treat them as rare and worth studying. She described the procedures that had been done to them as dispassionately as possible, not neglecting to mention the use of the paralytic drug. She didn't mention the second drug at all, but did describe how an allergic reaction to something she had been given ended up preventing her from undergoing a more invasive surgical procedure. Her composure faltered when the agent in charge of the video statement asked what the procedure would have been, but she managed to answer anyway. She saw the shock and disgust in the woman's eyes, and was glad when the agent moved on quickly. “Do you have any idea why you and the others were kept in cages, Agent Keen?”

“It's only a guess, but it may have been part of Vandenberg's attempt to make himself and his employees think of us as less than human and therefore undeserving of basic rights,” Liz replied.

“Okay, thank you,” the agent said a moment later. “Unless you have anything else you want to add, we'll call that finished. You can always add more details in a written statement later, if you want.”

Liz thanked her and left the room. She sighed and put a hand to her forehead. As far as she had tracked things, it had been a coherent, believable statement that contained as much of the truth as was possible. She was sure Red had provided something similar. No doubt their statements would match up with however much of the evidence the FBI still had, too.

As if the thought had summoned him, Red came around the corner and gave her a small smile. “Lizzie. Are you interested in joining me outside the interrogation room where Frank Vandenberg is ensconced? I convinced Harold to wait until we were ready.”

Liz didn't bother asking why Cooper would let Red watch an FBI interrogation at all. Part of her still didn't want to ever be anywhere near Vandenberg again, but she followed Red down the hall anyway. “What do you think he's going to say?” she asked as they walked.

“I've been wondering that myself,” Red said with a nod. “He knows he's finished. That could mean he'll try to take down whoever he can with him – or try to make some kind of deal.” _Whatever he says, I intend to see to it that he won't endanger our secret._

Liz stared at him for a moment. Another agent passed them in the hall going the opposite direction. She saw the familiar quick flash of curiosity and fear that most people who didn't work closely with Red got when they happened to be near him, and then the man hurried on down the hall. _So you intend to kill Vandenberg_ , Liz said.

_It's a distinct possibility_ , said Red.

Dembe was standing outside the interrogation room when they arrived. So were Ressler and Samar, who would be handling the actual questioning, and Cooper. Ressler glanced from Liz to Red when they got there, but didn't say anything other than, “All right. We'll get started now, sir.” Cooper, to whom this was addressed, nodded.

Through the one-way mirror, Vandenberg looked up when Ressler and Samar entered the room. He looked them each over, not bothering to be discreet about it. The two agents returned the favor before they sat down. Samar broke the silence. “Mr. Vandenberg,” she said calmly, “you must be aware that you're facing a very long list of charges: kidnapping of civilians and of a federal agent, torture, unlawful imprisonment, unauthorized medical experimentation, assault of a federal agent, murder. Do you have anything you'd like to say?”

The man's gaze had flickered to Ressler when Samar mentioned assault, and now that Samar was finished speaking, he smiled and looked at Ressler again. “You were with Agent Keen when my men found her,” he said, and then he cocked his head. “I'm guessing that means you're her partner. Is that correct?”

“Agent Navabi asked you a question,” Ressler said. “I suggest you take advantage of the opportunity she gave you to talk. You won't get many others.”

“I think I am correct,” Vandenberg went on. “And in that case, you must know what Agent Keen is.”

Liz clenched her fists at her sides. Showing a reaction was probably not suspicious, she thought, but she refused to look to see how Cooper was reacting to this. She didn't look at Red, either, though she could tell he was tense.

“ _Who_ Agent Keen is,” Ressler shot back, “is the FBI agent you kidnapped. Oh, and by the way, her testimony is going to help put you and your people away for a long, long time.”

At that, Vandenberg's smile faded. “I suppose so.”

“Once again, Mr. Vandenberg,” said Samar, leaning forward, “I'm going to give you the chance to cooperate – to tell us about your operation. If you choose not to, we'll have no reason not to pursue the maximum sentences for all of your crimes.”

The Collector looked uncertain now. “I'm not as concerned about prison sentences as I am about what will happen to my work if you don't release me,” he said.

“Your work?” Ressler's incredulity was obvious, and despite her anxiety Liz smiled just the slightest bit.

“Please. Enlighten us,” Samar said dryly.

“Your partner doesn't understand the long-term benefits of what I was trying to do,” Vandenberg said, “and neither did any of the older ones. I had hoped – the less stubborn younger generation... But apparently not.”

“What did they not understand?” Samar was running out of patience. Liz tamped down on her fear.

A sheen of something like desperation appeared in Vandenberg's face. “That I'm trying to save them. I'm trying to keep them from dying out, keep us from dying out. They've been so irresponsible, letting our blood become mixed to the point that--” He paused, his voice shaking with some combination of anger and frustration, and then continued, “To that point that there's almost no difference between us and everyone else.”

“'Us'?” Samar turned to look at Ressler, then back to Vandenberg. “You're saying that you and the group of people you kidnapped are all part of the same-- what, exactly? Family line?”

Liz glanced at Cooper. His attention was focused on the prisoner. Ressler, on the other hand, looked to have just stopped himself from turning to stare in the direction he knew Liz and Red were standing. She could almost see him putting some pieces together.

But at least the Collector didn't seem willing to spill all of his ancestors' secrets. Instead, he just sighed and shook his head. “If you people hadn't interfered, I would have at least been able to secure the beginning of one more generation of us, with much purer bloodlines,” he said sadly.

Samar cursed in Farsi. Ressler let out an exclamation of disgust and stood up. “Please tell me you're not talking about what I think you're talking about.”

“It really is unfortunate that I was only able to secure two females,” Vandenberg said, apparently ignoring Ressler's fury.

“You psychotic piece of shit!” A second later, Ressler had Vandenberg pinned against the wall, his hands at the man's throat.

“Agent Ressler!” Samar yelled, crossing the short distance to stand next to him. “I agree completely with your sentiments, but we aren't done with him yet.”

Liz's face was hot, and she was once again aware that everyone in this outer room was looking at her. Some of the nausea was returning. She took a step away from the mirror to sit down on the bench behind her. Red's mingled concern for her and simmering rage at Vandenberg were as clear as a beacon in her mind, but he stayed where he was.

Slowly, Ressler released Vandenberg and stepped back. With false calm, he straightened the man's collar and gestured to the chair, overturned on the ground. “Have a seat.”

Vandenberg appeared shaken for a few seconds, but then his composure returned. “I wouldn't have hurt her, Agent-- Ressler, is it? This was all for their benefit.”

“So you've said.” Ressler resumed his seat across from him.

“Did your employees all agree with your methods of saving this special bloodline?” Samar asked. “From my brief interactions with them, they didn't seem as – dedicated as you do.”

Vandenberg shrugged. “They work for money, or for the chance to do this kind of research,” he said.

Ressler muttered something that Liz didn't catch. Whatever it was made Samar's lips twitch.

The rest of the interrogation was not very fruitful. Vandenberg seemed to think that since he had provided his motivation for what he had done, he didn't need to give them much else. In fact, Liz thought he might be regretting what little detail he had gone into, based on how he refused to discuss the genetic commonality of his six victims and himself. Even when Ressler brought up the evidence they had taken from the warehouse site, Vandenberg just gave a tight smile and looked over the agents' shoulders at the mirror. He had guessed, Liz saw, that the dragons would not let the most important information get out.

“Well, that was interesting,” Red remarked, when Ressler and Samar got up to leave the interrogation room. He picked up his hat, from where it had been resting on the bench next to Liz. “Harold, Lizzie and I have both had a rather long, trying day. So if she's ready, I'll take us both home now.”

“You don't have anything to add to enlighten us as to what the hell Vandenberg was trying to find or to save with his tests?” Cooper asked.

“The man, as Agent Ressler just pointed out with his colorful word choice, is clearly not right in the head,” said Red, with a shake of his own head. “He imagined himself as a descendent of some ancient, noble family or race or what have you, and then evidently he decided to track down other people who fit some criteria that he thinks qualifies us to be part of the same group. I don't know what criteria he used to select us, or indeed if he even knows. Either way, I assure you I am no relation to him.” This last sentence was said with cold certainty.

Cooper frowned but didn't dispute any of this statement. As Liz stood up, and Ressler and Samar joined them all outside the room, he said, “I'm certainly not going to disagree that Frank Vandenberg is mentally unstable.”

“I don't think we're going to get much else out of him, for now at least,” Ressler said. He glanced at Liz but didn't speak to her.

“So we agree, then: we're finished with business for the day,” said Red.

“Agent Keen, I'd like a quick word with you in private before you leave,” Cooper said, as Liz was about to follow Red and Dembe. “I won't keep you much longer, I promise.”

Red turned around. Liz met his eyes, but then answered her boss, “Yes, sir.” _I'll be right out. I don't want to stick around any longer than I have to._

_We'll be waiting._

Liz walked to Cooper's office with him. He shut the door, and invited her to sit down in front of his desk. “I'm sorry to have to ask,” he said, as soon as they were both seated, “but I didn't want to assume Reddington spoke for you. Do you have any ideas as to why Vandenberg might have gone after you – or any of the others, for that matter?”

Liz nodded slowly. “Well, Reddington didn't mention the fact that the man who was taken to the hospital is Vandenberg's grandfather, as I'm sure you know or would find out soon enough,” she said. “So in Albert's case, I believe Vandenberg held him captive at least partially out of a desire for revenge for some kind of mistreatment or injustice that he thinks his grandfather was responsible for.”

“Injustice?” Cooper raised an eyebrow.

She suppressed a wince. She hadn't meant to say that. She was tired, and her guard was starting to slip. “I mean, when I watched them interact, it was like Vandenberg took special pleasure in observing any of Albert's negative reactions to what was being done to him. And my theory is that Albert must have treated his grandson in some way that Vandenberg perceived as cruel or unfair, maybe when Vandenberg was young, so that he wanted to treat Albert in such a dehumanizing way.”

“I see. Anything else, for the rest of you?”

Biting her lip, Liz shook her head. She said quietly, “You know I can't be as sure as Reddington that I'm not actually related to this guy, but I'd never seen him before my first day in that warehouse. I'd never met any of the other captives, other than Reddington, and none of the others had known me, either.” There was still too much she didn't know about her own past and her family connections.

Cooper was silent for a few seconds. Then he nodded once and stood up. “All right. Thank you, Agent Keen. Go home and get some rest – and if you need anything, please ask.”

Ressler was waiting for Liz when she got to the elevator. He opened his mouth, but Liz held up a hand. “Please, Ressler, can we not do this right now?” she said. She looked around and lowered her voice. “I want to figure this all out, and tell you what you want to know, but right now I just--”

“--Want to go home and crash, I know,” he cut in. He gave her a small smile. “That's what I was going to say, actually. Don't worry about any of the rest of that stuff for now. I can wait, Liz. Just as long as you don't leave me hanging for too long.”

She returned the smile. “I won't, I promise.”

“Okay. See you later.”

When Liz exited the building, Red's car was waiting as he had said. To her faint surprise, Red and Dembe were waiting outside the vehicle this time. Upon seeing her, Dembe smiled and got into the driver's seat, and Red opened the side door for her. “What did Harold want?”

“To ask me what he asked you, but without you there,” she replied.

Red shut her door and walked around to the other side of the car. “Of course,” he said as he got in.

“I told him about Vandenberg and Albert, and how he seemed to have it in for his grandfather in particular,” she reported. “That was pretty much all, though.”

He acknowledged this. “I expect the Bureau will keep Vandenberg locked up for a while longer before any motion is made toward a trial. His employees might be a different story. The fact that there are so many of them is an inconvenience, for various reasons.”

Liz rested her head against the back of the seat. She knew she should be concerned with what the guards or the scientists might say about the true nature of their prisoners, but she couldn't summon up the mental energy right now.

Red was silent for several minutes as Dembe drove. Then, as Liz was beginning to drift off, he spoke again. “Lizzie, I'm not going to ask you to do this today,” he said, waiting until she had opened her eyes and turned to look at him to finish, “but tomorrow, we need to have a talk about Agent Ressler.”

Liz's heart sank. It wasn't as if she had really thought he wouldn't bring it up, but still. “I haven't hypnotized him,” she said, allowing defiance to color her tone.

“I know. We'll talk about it tomorrow,” he repeated. “Over a late breakfast or an early lunch, whichever suits you.”

“How about I call you when I'm up and ready?” Liz said. She sat up, noting that they were almost at her apartment.

“Until tomorrow, then,” agreed Red. “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

“Goodnight.” She got out of the car, waved to Dembe, and headed up the steps to her apartment. The relief of being home – even in this place that hadn't been home for very long yet – was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. A shower, pajamas, and lying on the couch with a book or something on the TV for the rest of the evening sounded heavenly. She would worry about tomorrow when it came.  
~


	10. Chapter 10

~  
The ringing of her phone brought Liz awake the next morning – late, if the light coming in through the front curtains was anything to judge by. She sat up from where she had fallen asleep on the couch, yawned, and picked up her phone. It was Ressler calling. “Hello?”

“Keen. Oh, shit, I woke you up, didn't I?”

“It's okay,” Liz said automatically. She took the phone away from her ear long enough to check the time. It was 10:02. She blinked. She had stayed up for a while before finally being able to fall asleep, but that was still later than she had expected. “I should be getting up anyway. Is everything all right?” It was Friday, so Ressler would probably be at work.

“Yeah, it's fine,” he said quickly. “I was just, uh, calling because I figured Reddington is going to want to talk to you about … what I saw in the warehouse, and I wanted to see if you'd talk to me first. Explain a little more, if you're still planning to do that.”

“You're at work.” She hoped he wasn't expecting her to volunteer to come to the Post Office to have this discussion.

“I can get away for lunch,” he offered. She thought he sounded relieved, as if she might have changed her mind and decided to leave him hanging after all.

She tried not to be offended. Instead, she stood up, tidying the blankets she'd been sleeping under with one hand as she waited for her thought process to wake up fully. “All right. Um, Reddington is expecting me to call him soon,” she told him. “I'll call you after I've talked to him and convinced him you're not an immediate security threat.” She hesitated. “I know this is asking a lot, given what I told you, but you could meet us wherever we end up meeting. Maybe Reddington could help me fill in a few of the blanks for you.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to lure me to a place where it would be easy for Reddington to – do what we talked about yesterday.”

“You're right, that was a stupid idea,” said Liz, sighing and pushing her loose hair out of her face. If Ressler and Red were in the same room, away from the FBI, there was no guarantee Red wouldn't take matters into his own hands. Liz could lay out her case as convincingly as possible, but that might not matter. “I'll call you when I've left the meeting with Reddington, and we can go from there.”

“Sounds good.”

After Ressler hung up, Liz got ready for her day at a reasonable pace. She wasn't looking forward to either of these meetings, but it would be good to have them out of the way. Provided this first one went the way she wanted it to, anyway.

When she called Dembe at just before 11:30, he told her the car would be in front of her apartment in ten minutes. Then there was an exchange of words between him and Red that Liz couldn't quite hear, and Dembe added, “He says to bring a scarf and a light jacket, since you will be eating outside.”

Liz rolled her eyes at Red's usual high-handedness but thanked Dembe and hung up. It was a clear, bright day, so she couldn't really argue with Red's plan for the meal location. After several days locked up in a cage in a warehouse, seeing the open sky would be nice.

The restaurant Red took them to was, in fact, an open-air bistro in a corner of town Liz had never been. It specialized in fusion Vietnamese and French food. The restaurant was not crowded, and the wait staff were attentive but not intrusive. Liz could see why Red liked this place. Red recommended the Vietnamese banh mi baguette sandwich, and Liz humored him and ordered it. The mixture of flavors in the sandwich turned out to be delicious.

The two of them ate in fairly companionable quiet. When they had sat down at their table, Red had remarked that she looked rested and better after a night at home. Liz, who had been observing him in her turn, responded that he looked more relaxed as well, to which he just smiled. Then he told her his usual brand of tall tale, about the last time he had been at his favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Saigon.

Once they had nearly finished their meal, Red set down his glass and got to business. “So. I get the impression you're unwilling to do any further modification of Agent Ressler's memories, Lizzie.”

Liz dusted a few crumbs off her lap, and met his gaze. “Your impression is correct. I'm also unwilling to let you do it.”

“It's very admirable and charming, your protectiveness of your partner,” Red said with a brief smile. “But I am curious to know how you'd stop me if I chose to take care of him myself.”

She glared at him, keeping her voice low with effort. “I would hope I wouldn't have to do anything but tell you to leave him alone!” she hissed. “He's not going to betray our secret. I trust him. In fact, I'm planning to explain more of this to him after we're done today. I think it'll end up being a good thing to have him not be in the dark.”

His expression at this revealed nothing. “I see. And you expect me to consent to this?” At her nod, he sat back and regarded her for a few seconds. “How much does Donald know already?”

Liz quickly summarized what he had learned on the car trip back from the warehouse. “He was pretty furious when he found out what I'd already done to him,” she said, biting her lip. “But he understands why it's important to keep this secret.”

“I'm sure he does,” Red said.

“You have people around you who aren't dragons but know that you are,” Liz put in, when he didn't say anything further. “So did Ambrose, and so does Leah.”

“Yes. We all tend to gather an entourage of sorts once we've established ourselves,” he said. “You're a little young to start the process, compared to most of us, but your point is valid.”

It was Liz's turn to sit back. The fact that he confirmed the trend she had noticed wasn't really comforting. She still didn't like the idea of becoming someone at the center of her own web of power, by default. Once again, the sensation that everything in her life was changing and just plain happening too fast started to rise up and choke her.

“Lizzie,” he said then, gently, “you don't have to figure everything out right away. There's no need to rush. And I agree that Donald has the potential to be a useful ally.”

She stared at him. “You do?”

“Yes.”

Liz had a sudden suspicion that he might well have decided this long before their meeting. She probably hadn't persuaded him of anything – except, maybe, how much she cared about the topic. Pushing aside her frustration at this realization, she said, “Okay. Good. Is there anything we need to do to make sure no one else decides he's a threat because of what he knows?”

“That shouldn't be a problem, no,” said Red, “especially since he'll be accompanied by you most of the time, and since he lives in my territory.”

“Your territory? You have a territory?” He nodded, and she shook her head in exasperation. “You don't think that was information I might have wanted to know earlier, like when I asked you to tell me facts like this?”

“It's not something you need to worry about yet,” was Red's predictable reply.

“I don't care if you think I don't need to worry about it yet,” Liz shot back. Her voice was rising again; she glanced around and then lowered it as she continued, “These are facts about my life that I _want_ to know. I've had more than enough of stumbling around in the dark because of things I don't know about my own life.” It was infuriating and exhausting, the number of times she had tried to convince this man of this fact.

Red, as usual, remained calm in the face of her anger. “Lizzie,” he said, “for all the times I've kept things from you, things which have often hurt you or frustrated you, I have never once been motivated by anything but a desire to protect you.”

She sighed. In the silence that followed, a waiter approached their table and offered more water. Liz watched as the man filled her glass, and then filled Red's. Then the waiter departed, and Liz looked across the table at her companion again. “I know,” she told him. Whether she understood this motivation of his or not, it was a clear pattern. “But I wish you would at least tell me what you're protecting me from.”

“In this case?” He gave a brief, wry smile at the acknowledgement that there were multiple levels of secrecy at work here.

“Sure, start there.” Liz took a drink of her water and waited.

“I haven't told you anything about the intricacies of dragon politics – territories, organizations, alliances – because to do so would be to put you on the board, and make you a player in it.” He gestured very slightly over his shoulder, to where Dembe was seated at a table. “I don't share any real details of my organization with anyone who isn't a part of it. That's the way most of us manage our affairs.”

“And I'm not part of your organization?” Liz hoped she wasn't coming off as petulant; she really did just want to understand.

Red smiled again and shook his head. “Not in any official capacity, no. Which is not at all a slight against your considerable talents.”

In the context of Red's organization, Liz could guess what kinds of talents he was referring to. “Well, thanks,” she said dryly, “I think.” She considered this new information. “So if you tell me anything about your territory and things related to that, you're – what? Bringing me in?”

“And therefore putting you at a great deal more risk than you're in currently,” Red said. “I don't have a history of mentoring other dragons, long-term, and sharing my space with them, so you've already attracted some unfortunate attention from the likes of Gordon Ambrose. But if you were to be officially a member of my organization, that would up the stakes significantly.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“It would look like I might be preparing to launch an attack on some other dragon's territory,” he explained.

Her eyes widened. “Oh.” She was just starting to wonder how this kind of intrigue and political jockeying among dragons went so entirely unnoticed by the rest of the population. But she quickly answered her own question: it was probably all taken as related to the world of organized crime. Which some of it was. “Wait, so does that mean Anna Marie and David working together is--?”

“It's less of a problem because Anna Marie is the only one of the two that has a head for business,” Red said, “and everyone knows it. Plus, they're from the same bloodline.”

“Right.” Liz felt herself blush, and she looked down at the edge of the table to keep herself from asking that question again.

“So, now that we have all of that cleared up, do you have any other burning questions?”

She blinked and returned her thoughts to Ressler. “If you promise you're not going to wipe Ressler's memories, then no, I think I'm good for now.” There was still plenty she wanted to know, but she knew Red well enough to know she'd be pushing her luck if she asked for more right now.

“I promise.” He took a drink from his glass, and then straightened. “Now, unless you'd like to sample some of Dominic's wonderful desserts, I'll get the check.”

While they waited for the bill, Liz took out her phone and stepped away to call Ressler. It was after one by now; she hoped he hadn't given up on her. But he answered after one ring and said he could meet her outside a diner that was a couple of streets from where she was. She passed on this news to Red, who offered to drive her there but was not shocked when she said she'd rather walk.

“Give my regards to Donald,” was his parting remark before he and Dembe got into the car.

Liz enjoyed the walk to the diner in the bright, crisp fall afternoon, even as she mulled over what she had learned during lunch. It was simultaneously a lot to take in, and not enough information. At least this time she knew why Red didn't want to tell her more.

Once she got to the diner, she waited outside for a few minutes for Ressler to arrive. The diner, she noted, looked like it wouldn't be too crowded. That was a good thing, considering what they would be talking about. She caught herself rubbing the scar on her hand. She frowned. She had been so concerned about even getting to this point that she hadn't thought about the other source of her anxiety. What if Ressler heard more of the truth about her, and decided it was too much? What if he ended up thinking she was a freak?

Before she could spend too much time worrying, Ressler's car pulled up at the curb. He got out and hurried around to the sidewalk out in front of the diner. “Hey. You been waiting long?”

She shook her head, and turned to go inside. He hadn't treated her any differently since their conversation in the car, she reminded herself. That was a good sign, at least.

Since she had already eaten, Liz ordered coffee and a berry muffin after Ressler ordered his lunch. Once the waitress had left, Liz took a breath and looked around the diner. From where they were sitting, it seemed like they wouldn't be overheard; they were in one corner, and none of the booths or tables nearby were occupied.

“So what did Reddington have to say?” Ressler asked. He was fidgeting slightly, she noted, but met her gaze without hesitation.

“He agreed with me that having you know the truth could be a good thing,” she said bluntly. “He's not going to do anything to you.”

“And you aren't, either.” It wasn't quite a question, but it wasn't quite a declaration either.

Liz winced and shook her head. “No. I'm not. I swear.”

Ressler looked at her without speaking for several seconds. Then he nodded. “Well, I guess I should be worried about whether you just made me believe you, but I don't think that's the case.”

“Ressler, I'm so sorry,” she began, but was halted by the arrival of their waitress with water glasses and coffee for the both of them.

Once the woman had gone, Ressler held up a hand to keep Liz from renewing her apologies. “I'm not going to say I'm okay with you having messed with my brain,” he said, “but I think I understand why you did it. So let's move on for now.”

She nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “Where do you want to start?”

“Why don't you start with explaining what you meant when you said you and Reddington are 'part-dragon'?”

He kept his voice low, but Liz couldn't help looking around the diner again before she replied. With each question she answered, Ressler had another one prepared. He took time to absorb each new fact he learned, and he wasn't cruel about any of it, but Liz was still drained by the time he had finished his meal and taken a break from the interview. She took a bite of the berry muffin, which was cold by now.

“So. You haven't known about all this for very long, have you?” Ressler asked.

Liz counted up the number of months it had been since her first transformation. It was still less than a year. “Nope. Not very long,” she told him with a sigh.

He acknowledged this, and fell silent again for a while. Liz slowly picked apart the rest of her pastry. There were several topics he hadn't gotten to yet – some of which she would just as soon he avoided.

“Was Gordon Ambrose a dragon?” was his next question.

“Yes. He, uh, gave me this,” Liz gestured to the scar at her neck.

Ressler's eyes widened. “You mean that was from – claws? Damn.”

“At least I gave as good as I got,” she said with an uncomfortable shrug and smile.

At that, his eyes traveled from hers to her hands, and back to her face again. She could almost see the question forming. Up until now, he had mostly asked about dragons and their abilities in general, with a few queries to establish the timeline of when she had found out, things like that. But now he was going to start asking more about what it was like for her, she could tell.

Just as he opened his mouth, Ressler's phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, then swore softly and muttered, “I'm going to be really late back to work.” He answered.

Whatever Cooper was telling him, Liz observed, it was not good news. She waited, idly watching pedestrians and cars outside the window. While Ressler listened to their boss, she wondered how extensive Red's territory was, and whether he had had to fight a war, something like he had with Berlin, to reclaim it when he decided to return to the States. For her.

Ressler hung up then, and Liz turned her attention back to him in time to see him scowl. “Well. It seems Frank Vandenberg went missing during his transport to the holding facility,” he reported.

“Missing?” For a brief, heart-stopping moment, Liz pictured that man, escaped and able to rebuild, even restart his 'work'. But then if he had escaped, Ressler would have said that – not that he vanished.

Her partner nodded grimly when he saw realization dawn. “Liz, this is getting ridiculous. He can't just keep executing his so-called justice whatever way he sees fit. It's--”

“You interrogated Vandenberg,” Liz cut in, suddenly furious. “You saw what kind of a monster he is, and what he--” She stopped, took a breath, and changed tack slightly. “Besides, if Red hadn't done it, someone else probably would have. We can't afford the risk, knowing what he knows.”

“He didn't seem willing to share any details of what he knew,” Ressler pointed out.

“To you and Samar,” retorted Liz. “Who knows if he would have changed his mind at some other point in the process?”

Ressler clenched his jaw but didn't reply.

“Look, I'm not saying I've decided that vigilante justice is the way to go from now on,” Liz said. She was fully aware that he might not believe her, considering the many times he knew of that she had worked outside the law in just the past few months. “But I can't pretend I'm not a part of this group of people now, either.”

“Sure. But I don't think that's all this is.” Before she could say anything in response to that, Ressler went on, “Anyway, I have to get back to work. Thanks for helping me understand some more about this stuff. I'll get the check.”

Liz stood up as he did. She had to smile at his last comment, despite the tension that she still felt. “Fine, but I barely ate anything, you know. So don't pretend you're being generous.”

To her relief, he returned the smile and shrugged. “You have to admit, fake generosity is easier on the wallet,” he pointed out.

She laughed. “True. Thanks for the snack.”

Ressler offered to drop her off at her apartment, but it wasn't really on the way so Liz told him she'd take a cab. “I don't want to make you even later – Cooper would be pissed.”

“All right.”

Liz had just gotten back to her apartment when her phone rang. It was Red. “How was your meeting with Agent Ressler?” he asked, as soon as she picked up.

“Fine. It went well,” she said, sighing and turning around to glance out her window. No, she definitely wouldn't put it past him. Nothing looked out of the ordinary on the street, but she still asked, “Did you have someone watching me, or is it just a coincidence that you called me literally the minute I got home?”

“I do have excellent timing,” Red replied smoothly. “Has he forgiven you for your past trespasses against him?”

Two could play the question-avoiding game. “What happened to Vandenberg, Red?”

“I can tell you honestly, I have no idea where Frank Vandenberg is right now,” he said. Then after a second, he added, “But up until ten minutes ago, he was in a very secure location, very much off the FBI's radar. He won't be a threat to us again.”

Liz sighed again, pushing the hair off her forehead. There had been a time when this kind of news would have been much more disturbing to hear. She might have at least been able to convince herself she wasn't mostly relieved and even glad. “What about the rest of his staff?”

“I'm planning to drop by the Post Office shortly, to allow Harold the satisfaction of yelling at me for a while and blaming me for things that he can't possibly prove,” he said. “Once I'm there, I'll be in telepathic range to contact all of the doctors and guards. I'll just give them a brief description, and possibly show them a few images, of what happened to their employer. Then I'll suggest a course of action they should follow. That should be enough.”

It was a good plan. He didn't need to hear that from her, though – she could hear the self-satisfied tone of his voice well enough already. “All right. Try not to goad Cooper too much,” she advised.

“Well, in that case, I might as well just stay outside,” he said, sounding put-upon.

She bit back a smile. “Is there anything else you needed, Red?”

“Now that you mention it, I was wondering if you had any room after your two lunches for any dessert,” he said. “There's a new gelato place that just opened up not too far from your apartment. I've heard it has the most amazing flavors – ones that you can't normally get in the US. Have you ever tasted a fresh mangosteen, Lizzie? I swear, it's one of the most delicate, complex fruit flavors I've ever experienced. Every bite is a near-blissful event. They're extremely expensive and difficult to import, too. Canned ones don't even deserve to be called the same name, by the way.”

“It sounds wonderful, Red, but I'm not even the slightest bit hungry,” she said.

“After dinner, then. Dembe can come by and pick you up whenever you're ready.”

Her smile was wider now. As usual, she knew this little monologue and invitation were meant to distract her as much as they were meant to be taken seriously. This time, she appreciated the gesture. It was nice to know that some things could still return to normal. She told him, “We'll see.” Then before he could go on with any more of his persuasion, she hung up.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with this very long, very strange fic! The series is not over yet...


End file.
